Analysis of public healthcare policies to improve social utility using stochastic models

In many health systems, public and private hospitals with different characteristics co-exist. Generally, in such systems, although the payments are low in public hospitals, the high waiting times decrease the quality level perceived by patients. In private hospitals, although the payments are high, the waiting times are low and thus the quality level perceived by the patients is also high. In this case, a more balanced system can be socially beneficial. Pricing policies have an impact on the patient's choice of hospital. Lower prices in private hospitals cause more patients to choose these hospitals. Thus, both the crowdedness of public hospitals decreases and more people can receive higher quality services. The main motivation of this thesis is to provide pricing models to provide a more balanced and socially useful system for similar situations. The prices in private hospitals are defined on the basis of contract mechanisms between the government and these hospitals. Therefore, in this thesis, the effects of different contract mechanisms between the government and private hospitals on social utility are investigated. For this aim, simulation-based and analytical models are designed. We use the parameters similar to the health system in the Eskişehir region and make a comparison between the models. The results show that contracts between the government and private hospitals are beneficial for the community. In particular, the policy of income-based pricing can be beneficial for both individuals and the government, since it leads to balanced expenses.