HCM 626 - Healthcare Economics

3 Credit(s)

This course covers the three most pressing issues of every health care system – costs, access and quality. The purpose of this course is to give you knowledge of current market forces, government policy, and the skills to analyze and forecast future market forces and to make better resource allocation decisions to produce health care that is less expensive, higher quality, and safer. To do this, the course examines determinants of demand for health services, determinants of costs in health care organizations, the role of competition and regulation in the health care industry, health risks and their economic impact, insurance and alternative financing mechanisms, outcomes analysis of health programs, and theories of health care cost inflation. We will examine the relationship between quality and costs and the “business case for quality”.
Prerequisite(s): BUS 538 (or Principles of Microeconomics), HCM 601 , background in spreadsheets, or permission of instructor.