Ethical considerations of pricing of belgian healthcare services
Abstract Healthcare is of most importance to consumers, and analyzing how its price is being fixed and perceived will reveal interesting insights for the literature. In order to respond to the study question: “Is pricing of healthcare in Belgium fair?”, firstly the existing literature on ethics, marketing and pricing basis are analyzed and discussed. The ethics basis is set through four visions: utilitarianism, liberalism, marxism and liberal egalitarianism, and the most relevant ones to the Belgium society, utilitarianism and liberal egalitarianism, are used to reach the conclusions. Literatu... Mehr ...
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Dokumenttyp: | masterThesis |
Erscheinungsdatum: | 2015 |
Schlagwörter: | healthcare / Belgium / pricing / ethics / consumer |
Sprache: | Englisch |
Permalink: | https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-27367841 |
Datenquelle: | BASE; Originalkatalog |
Powered By: | BASE |
Link(s) : | http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/thesis:2746 |
Abstract Healthcare is of most importance to consumers, and analyzing how its price is being fixed and perceived will reveal interesting insights for the literature. In order to respond to the study question: “Is pricing of healthcare in Belgium fair?”, firstly the existing literature on ethics, marketing and pricing basis are analyzed and discussed. The ethics basis is set through four visions: utilitarianism, liberalism, marxism and liberal egalitarianism, and the most relevant ones to the Belgium society, utilitarianism and liberal egalitarianism, are used to reach the conclusions. Literature on ethics in healthcare is also consulted. Marketing concepts are further described, as well as characteristics of healthcare marketing. Moreover, price conception is generally explained and looked into more in details for healthcare pricing. The healthcare organization in Belgium is further explained and detailed, with a focus on main stakeholders. Following the discussion of existing literature, 5 research questions on consumers’ perception of price and their experience are formulated. These research questions are: “Do consumers have enough information on their choices in healthcare?”, “Do consumers perceive the price of healthcare services as important while making a choice?”, “Do consumers really seek for a choice in healthcare?”, “Are consumers satisfied by their healthcare service?” and “Did consumers already felt discriminated because of their presumed purchase power?”. The research questions are answered with the help of hypotheses tested and studied through a quantitative research. In chapter 5, research questions are explained together with the quantitative research’s methodology, sample and the hypotheses tests. The target group is composed out of people having been hospitalized in Belgium, since they are believed to have consumed the largest quantity of healthcare services, and the past decade is set as time limit in order to ensure results are corresponding with the current reality. After the analysis of the ...