Willingness-to-pay (WTP) is the valuation of health benefit in monetary terms, often so that this can be used in a cost-benefit analysis. The term WTP may also refer to survey techniques used to derive WTP valuations. However in many health care system patients do not make direct purchasing choices for much of their care, and so WTP are not frequently used except in certain situations (e.g. waiting times, access arrangements to care, types of care usually obtained through direct payment) where monetary valuations may be more straightforward to make. One commonly used WTP valuation method is contingent valuation, where individuals are asked to compare different hypothetical situations about the intervention under investigation. For example, they could be asked to state their WTP for IVF treatment when presented with different probabilities of success.
How to cite: Willingness-to-Pay [online]. (2016). York; York Health Economics Consortium; 2016. https://yhec.co.uk/glossary/willingness-to-pay/