Analysis of health care payment contract based on the principal-agent theory

摘要

Health care cost is private information.The information asymmetry about cost is the main factor of holding back the development of medical insurance.Based on the principal-agent theory,this article has studied the separating contracts which includes two kinds of payment contracts and can automatically screen the doctor's cost information.The first is upper limit per capita payment with fewer patients.The second is lower limit per-capita payment with much more patients.Doctors will automatically show their cost information when they choose the payment contracts.The high-cost doctor will choose the first contract and the low-cost doctor will choose the second one.Compared to that under information symmetry,the payment contract under information asymmetry will match fewer patients to the high-cost doctor and pay more to the low-cost doctor which will produce a second-best outcome.