Resource Library

Quality of Health Care and its Role in Cost Recovery With a Focus on Empirical Findings About Willingness to Pay for Quality Improvements

This paper looks at the interrelationship of cost recovery and quality improvements in the health sector of developing countries as well as at people's willingness to pay for perceived improvements in health services. Included in this document are in depth literature reviews of five major types of studies: facility based studies of the effect of cost recovery on utilization, econometric health care demand studies, hedonic pricing studies, contingent valuation studies, and cost-recovery intervention studies. By reviewing these studies, the paper provides a conceptual framework within which one can consider people's willingness to pay for quality improvements in health care by looking at how demand behavior interacts with supply, especially in terms of promoting the financial sustainability of government services. This paper also presents a preliminary design of possible field research activities.