Examining the ways and extent to which systemic factors affect health outcomes with regard to quality, affordability and access to curative healthcare, this explorative book compares tax-funded Beveridge systems and insurance-based Bismarck systems. Containing contributions from national experts, The Law and Policy of Healthcare Financing charts and compares the merits of healthcare systems throughout 11 countries, from the UK to Colombia.

First Edition Awarded Second Place in 2013 AJN Book of the Year Awards! The second edition of this award-winning text, designed specifically for the DNP course in health care economics and finance, remains the only book to embed economic and financial concepts in the context of nursing practice and nursing health care systems. Well organized and clearly written, the second edition is updated to encompass key changes to reimbursement and health care regulations and provides revised statistics throughout. It offers new information on ambulatory care, cost and ratio analysis, additional examples of financial statements, and an updated sample business plan. Enhanced teaching strategies include real life case studies, challenging critical thinking questions, learning games, key words in each chapter, and an extensive glossary. New PowerPoint slides add to the text’s value as a robust teaching tool. Written by experienced DNP executives for DNPs, the book emphasizes critical skills nurse leaders need to participate in strategic health care planning. It delivers a practical approach to business, finance, economics, and health policy that is designed to foster sound business and leadership. The text clearly explicates the relationship between cost of care, quality of care, and ethics, and examines the economic and financial implications of evidence-based practice and quality. Also included is a special section on finance for independent practitioners. Additionally, the book delivers required competencies of the AACN Essentials and the AONE. New to the Second Edition: Updated statistics throughout New information on ambulatory care A cost and ratio analysis Additional examples of financial statements Updated business plan Enhanced faculty support PowerPoint slides

As a contribution to the search for suitable and sustainable solutions to finance rising medical care expenditures, the book proposes a typology of healthcare financing and insurance schemes, based on the dimensions of basic vs. supplementary services and mandatory vs. voluntary coverage, to analyse the design and the complex interactions between various financing and insurance arrangements in several OECD countries. This study provides a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the financial and organisational structures of different countries’ healthcare financing and insurance schemes. Its main contributions are the development of a novel and rigorous theoretical framework analysing the economic rationales for the optimal design of healthcare financing and insurance schemes, and an empirical and institutional analysis investigating the consequences for efficiency and affordability of the complex interactions between basic and supplementary sources of financing.

What are public health services? Countries across Europe understand what they are or what they should include differently. This study describes the experiences of nine countries detailing the ways they have opted to organize and finance public health services and train and employ their public health workforce. It covers England France Germany Italy the Netherlands Slovenia Sweden Poland and the Republic of Moldova and aims to give insights into current practice that will support decision-makers in their efforts to strengthen public health capacities and services. Each country chapter captures the historical background of public health services and the context in which they operate; sets out the main organizational structures; assesses the sources of public health financing and how it is allocated; explains the training and employment of the public health workforce; and analyses existing frameworks for quality and performance assessment. The study reveals a wide range of experience and variation across Europe and clearly illustrates two fundamentally different approaches to public health services: integration with curative health services (as in Slovenia or Sweden) or organization and provision through a separate parallel structure (Republic of Moldova). The case studies explore the context that explain this divergence and its implications. This study is the result of close collaboration between the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and the WHO Regional Office for Europe Division of Health Systems and Public Health. It accompanies two other Observatory publications Organization and financing of public health services in Europe and The role of public health organizations in addressing public health problems in Europe: the case of obesity alcohol and antimicrobial resistance (both forthcoming).

The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Health Law covers the breadth and depth of health law, with contributions from the most eminent scholars in the field. The Handbook paints with broad thematic strokes the major features of American healthcare law and policy, its recent reforms including the Affordable Care Act, its relationship to medical ethics and constitutional principles, how it compares to the experience of other countries, and the legal framework for the patient experience. This Handbook provides valuable content, accessible to readers new to the subject, as well as to those who write, teach, practice, or make policy in health law.

Health care reform has dominated public discourse over the past several years, and the recent passage of the Affordable Care Act, rather than quell the rhetoric, has sparked even more debate. Donald A. Barr reviews the current structure of the American health care system, describing the historical and political contexts in which it developed and the core policy issues that continue to confront us today. This comprehensive analysis introduces the various organizations and institutions that make the U.S. health care system work—or fail to work, as the case may be. A principal message of the book is the seeming paradox of the quality of health care in this country—on the one hand it is the best medical care system in the world, on the other it is one of the worst among developed countries because of how it is organized. Barr introduces readers to broad cultural issues surrounding health care policy, such as access, affordability, and quality. He discusses specific elements of U.S. health care, including insurance, especially Medicare and Medicaid, the shift to for-profit managed care, the pharmaceutical industry, issues of long-term care, the plight of the uninsured, medical errors, and nursing shortages. The latest edition of this widely adopted text updates the description and discussion of key sectors of America’s health care system in light of the Affordable Care Act.