REDUCING SICK LEAVE COSTS BY SHORTENING WAITING PERIODS FOR ELECTIVE SURGERY

Some sick leave of patients waiting for elective surgery could be avoided if these patients were treated with less delay. One way of achieving this is to give priority to patients on sick leave. Problems of fairness that such a policy would raise might be solved by assuring that part of the production gains stemming from avoided sick leave were used to increase treat ment capacity to benefit all patients, including those not on sick leave. Another way to reduce sick leave due to waiting time is to increase supply temporarily and reduce treatment backlog without changing priorities among patient groups. If treatment thresholds are unaffected, such a temporary increase in supply will relieve all later patients of some of their waiting and render a production gain that may exceed marginal costs. If treatment thresholds are lowered as a result of waiting time's being reduced, there will still be production gains in patients benefiting by the temporary increase in supply, but in this situation the gains may cover only part of marginal costs. Key words: waiting lists; sick leave; health economics. (Med Decis Making 1990;10:95-101). © 1990, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.