Financing, funding and organisation of health and care in Australia

The SIG will include members interested in the financing and organisation of health care, aged care, and disability care. This includes those undertaking research examining the impact of changes in the supply-side (see below) on provider behaviour, access, costs and health outcomes. Research will typically draw on labour economics, industrial organisation, public economics, and applied micro-econometrics and causal inference, as well as other disciplinary approaches (e.g. implementation science).

Areas of interest include:

Financing and funding: Taxation and insurance (Medicare, NDIS, aged care), public-private finance, out of pockets, provider payment models

Market organisation: competition, integration, public-private provision, regulation

Input markets: health workforce, pharmaceuticals.

Provider decision-making: practice variations, incentives, behavioural economics.

Aim

To build a stronger and high quality evidence base for Australian policy decisions

Objectives

  • To enhance co-operation and collaboration between researchers
  • To build academic capacity in research by supporting PhD students, ECRs and MCRs
  • To promote the importance of this research with non-academics (e.g. public servants, research councils and funders, other stakeholders, then public) and within health services research

Before 2023:

  • General call for additional members once SIG is approved
  • Creation of three sub-groups (one for each objective) to provide initial ideas for priorities
  • Creation of planning document setting out i) priorities to meet the above objectives, ii) how priorities will be met (activities).

During 2023 – implement above plan (including activities for beyond 2023). Initial ideas for planned activities are below.

To enhance co-operation between researchers

  • Joint funding applications
  • Workshops to discuss research ideas, work in progress, share knowledge about datasets.
  • Submissions to Government reviews and consultations
  • Arrange organised sessions at conferences (AHES, HSRAANZ, IHEA)

To build academic capacity in research by supporting PhD students, ECRs and MCRs

  • Workshops/seminars
  • Participation of members in AHES and IHEA mentoring programs
  • Ensure topics are covered in existing teaching/degrees/short courses

To promote the importance of this research with non-academics (e.g. public servants, research councils and funders, other stakeholders, the public) and within health services research.

  • Arrange organised sessions at conferences (AHES, HSRAANZ, IHEA, others)
  • Ensure topics are covered in existing short courses for non-academics.
  • Organize 1-day policy workshop with short research presentations alongside presentations from non-academics about policy priorities.
  • Shorter/smaller roundtables with specific organisations (DH, IHACPA, NDIS).

If you would like to join the SIG, please email the conveners:

Anthony Scott at a.scott@unimelb.edu.au

Anam Bilgrami at anam.bilgrami@mq.edu.au

Jinhu Li at jinhu.li@anu.edu.au

Conveners

Anthony Scott
Anthony Scott
The University of Melbourne

Anthony Scott leads the health economics research at the Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne. He is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Past President of the Australian Health Economics Society, and a previous Board Director of the International Health Economics Association. Tony’s research interests focus on the behaviour of physicians, health workforce, incentives and performance, primary care, and hospitals. He has consulted and provided advice to the World Bank, Independent Hospital Pricing Authority, Productivity Commission, Medibank Private, and Commonwealth and State Departments of Health. He leads the Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life (MABEL) panel survey of 10,000 physicians, and is a Research Lead Investigator on the NHMRC Partnerships Centre on Health System Sustainability.

Anam Bilgrami
Anam Bilgrami
Macquarie University

Anam is a Research Fellow at the Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy and a recipient of a Macquarie University Covid Recovery Fellowship to undertake aged care policy research. She is a Health Economist with experience in economics consulting work (previously as a Senior Economist and Manager at Deloitte Access Economics), policy and program evaluation, and academic research. She is passionate about producing high-quality research to improve decision making and health care policy design in Australia and specialises in causal inference and policy evaluation. She completed her PhD in Health Economics with the Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy and her research interests lie in the areas of aged care, mental health and private health insurance. She was recently awarded the 2020 Macquarie Business School Award for Research Excellence in Economics, MQBS Impact Prize 2022 and was a Highly Commended Finalist for Excellence in Higher Degree Research 2021 ('The Rising Stars').

Jinhu Li
Jinhu Li
Australian National University

Jinhu is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Health Economics Wellbeing and Society at the Australian National University. Previously she worked as a Senior Lecturer at Deakin University, and a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. From 2017 to 2021 she is an Australian Research Council (ARC) awarded Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) fellow. She obtained her PhD in economics from McMaster University in Canada. Jinhu’s research fields of interest are health economics, economics of education, and development economics. Her research interests include the social economic determinants of health and human capital, health workforce, incentives in the health care markets and physician behaviours, and modelling patient's and physician's preferences using Discrete Choice Experiments.