KATO RYUTA    Department   Professional Graduate School  , Graduate School of Governance Studies    Position   Professor
Language	English
Publication Date	2013/12
Type	Academic Journal
Peer Review	Peer reviewed
Title	Regulated medical fee schedule of the Japanese health care system
Contribution Type	Co-authored (other than first author)
Journal	INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HEALTH CARE FINANCE & ECONOMICS
Journal Type	Another Country
Publisher	SPRINGER
Volume, Issue, Page	13(3-4),pp.301-317
Author and coauthor	Makoto Kakinaka and Ryuta Ray Kato
Details	This study presents a theoretical framework for examining the effect of the Japanese government-regulated medical price schedule, 'Shinryo-Houshu-Seido,' on the behavior of medical providers. In particular, we discuss the optimal rule of this price schedule for the regulator, taking into account information asymmetry between the regulator and providers. Our simple model predicts that heterogeneous providers either under-provide or over-provide medical inputs in comparison with the socially optimal outcome. Moreover, our results show that when the allocated budget is reduced to a certain level, even the second-best outcome becomes unachievable, no matter how the price schedule is regulated. While the limited budget size is shown to have a clear negative effect on social welfare, we suggest that the prospect of obtaining the second-best outcome is left to negotiation between the regulator and the budget allocator.
DOI	10.1007/s10754-013-9133-6
ISSN	1389-6563