Privatisation and professional dynamics
Privatisation and professional dynamics

Summary/Abstract: The organisation and delivery of health care throughout the world is undergoing significant organisational, social, and economic changes. These changes have important implications for the professional status of medicine since they affect the dominance, autonomy, and authority of medical practitioners. In this article we examine the professional dynamics which underlie the process of privatisation in the field of health care in Slovenia and place it within the context of these global changes. To this end, we look first at realised and potential privatisation among primary health care doctors in Slovenia. We continue by illustrating the forms of organisation within the private sector preferred by practitioners - solo practice versus group practice - and ask what method of privatisation of public health care centres they regard as most acceptable. We take these as indicators of the widespread professional orientation of Slovenian doctors towards managed care and accountability rather than to the highly autonomous forms exemplified by the traditional solo practice. We then turn to the factors that affect doctor’s decision to move from the public to the private sector. We close with a discussion of the two phases in the privatisation of health care in Slovenia which are characterised by different practitioner preferences with regard to the form and organisation of the private sector, as well as by different motivational structures affecting the individual’s decision to move into the private sector.

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