Hbf Case Study

Issue Analysis &

Solutions Recommended

for HBF Health Fund

Executive Summary

This report analysed the issue of HBF and provided recommended solution for the company. The issue was that the cost of private hospital bills increased a lot year by year, and according to current premiums, HBF cannot cover the expensive fees, so, HBF expected increases on fees of private hospitals to be as small as possible or even not at all. Furthermore, the cause of this issue is that the main stakeholder and business purpose of private hospitals and non-profit health insurance companies are different.

Alternatives this report found include:

* Cooperate with other insurers to negotiate with hospital groups;

* Apply for government subsidies;

* Third-party price regulation;

* Cooperate with public hospitals.

This report evaluates above alternatives base on following criteria:

* Cost

* Customer satisfaction

* Ease of implementation

* Corporate image

After these analyses, the report recommended HBF to cooperate with other insurers to strengthen the bargaining power and negotiate with private hospitals to minimise the increase in price.

Moreover, this report provides suggestions on how to implement the recommended solution. HBF should find insurance companies which cooperate with Ramsay firstly; and then, negotiate with those insurers and make an agreement common interests; finally, set up a bargain group and negotiate with Ramsay. Some implications also were put forward in the report. If the negotiation was successful, HBF could pay to members to help them cover the costs of their hospital bills without any finance issue. Although, there is still a risk that the negotiation with Ramsay may be failed.

This report also discussed the ethical issue, in this case, it is unethical that private hospitals only aimed at high profits and tried to increase their price as much as they can, but never care about their customers and cooperate partners.

Issue &...