Public-private mix of the primary health-care providers in Ljubljana 1992-1998: system and labour market concerns
Public-private mix of the primary health-care providers in Ljubljana 1992-1998: system and labour market concerns

Summary/Abstract: The article deals theoretically and empirically with pluralisation (privatisation) of providers of medical services. First, a broader socio-economic framework for policy interpretation of a health system reform is briefly sketched. Then, internal professional tensions of public health quasi-markets, with a few illustrations for transition countries, are elaborated. The empirical part focuses on the recent pluralisation of primary health care in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. The basic labour market comparisons between physicians working in private practices and in public institutions are presented and discussed. It is aimed at exposing some developmental differences in recent publicprivate arrangements. The findings reveal an increasing awareness among all physicians of some basic malfunctions within the public institutions and of a better quality of health services, delivered by physicians in the private sector. However, they also demonstrate quite a blurring providers’ view on the sources of the system’s (in)efficiency. Physicians prefer to emphasise the administrative & organisational disadvantages of the public sector, but in terms of professional liability, still avoid directly addressing the well-known internal professional tensions in medical markets, which also were strong push-factors for them.

• Details
• Contents