Manageable Hospital Service Volume under Global Budgeting: Evidence from a Policy Reform in Taiwan

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This paper investigates whether health care providers change their behavior in response to different payment structures. Using a policy reform in Taiwan that allowed hospitals to switch from a global budgeting system, a reweighted fee-for-service system, to an individual budgeting system, a capitation system, the results show that the individual budgeting system led to lower services volumes. This effect is significant for more discretionary care but not for less elective services like cancer care.