New funding arrangements in the Italian National Health Service

Abstract

In the 1990s, the Italian National Health Service (INHS) experienced a major reform introducing regionalization, quasi-markets and managerialism. The combination of quasi-markets and regionalization has produced an interesting scenario: 21 Regional Governments designing their own organizational and funding models to achieve the desired combination of equity, efficiency, freedom of choice and cost containment. This paper reports the results of a research project carried out in 1998-99 to identify such models, verify their actual states of implementation and analyse the resulting incentives for individual health-care organizations. Overall, most Regions have designed their models according to the 'LHU-centred' template, under which most public hospitals remain under Local Health Unit (LHU) control, LHUs are funded by their Regions on a capitation basis and each LHU is expected to reimburse other LHUs, Independent INHS Hospitals (IHs) and accredited private providers for services supplied to its residents. Reimbursements are activity-based according to Regional fee schedules. The major exception is Lombardy, Italy's largest and wealthiest Region, which has formally opted for the 'purchaser-provider split' template, with LHUs acting mostly as purchasers while IHs and accredited private professionals and organizations act as providers. In practice, however, many Regions still show significant features of the traditional cost-reimbursement system.