A methodology to evaluate indebted Health Authorities using diagnosis-based risk adjustment

Abstract

The present study aims at developing a methodology to explain deficits in different Chilean Health Authorities in Chile. It intends to make comparable the Health Authorities by studying the diverse risk and hence casemix of the different Health Authorities, this resulting in different degrees of efficiency. The present study case is used illustratively being the centre of the research the proposed methodology. The results show that al least 5 of the more indebted HA are those with highest observed expenditures and functioning with relatively good degrees of efficiency in comparison to the rest of them. Despite the concrete results of the illustrative exercise, it is the robustness of the method to compare different Health Authorities the main result of the study. This robustness lies on the possibility of comparing Health Authorities and their populations, adjusting them by their risks and casemix.