An investigation of differentiated prescription decision on profitability: A case study from Thailand

AbstractThis study investigates the equity of different medications prescribed to multiple types of patient. As the prescription process plays an important role in hospital resource allocation, physicians make decisions in allocations of the prescribed medications based on diagnostic symptoms; however, physicians may not be aware of an inherited influence of medication options or reimbursed amount, related to benefit plans. This study explores how variety of benefit plans, competition, and amount of dosage of prescriptions were assigned to segmented group of patients. The results suggested that types of patients play important role in indicating prescription profits; moreover, the number of patient types and brand options also have a significant impact on hospital profitability on prescription.