CV

Lukas studied economics at the University of Zurich with an exchange semester at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He completed his studies in 2007 with a licentiate. He then worked at the Winterthur Institute of Health Economics (WIG) of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (zhaw) until the end of 2009. From 2010-2014, he completed his PhD at the University of St. Gallen in the PhD Program for Economics and Finance. At the same time, he worked there at the Center for Disability and Integration as a research assistant. From 2014 to 2023, he was a research associate at the CSS Institute for Empirical Health Economics. In 2018-2019, he spent a research semester at the Department for Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School in Boston. In May 2023, Lukas joined the Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine at the University of Lucerne as a full-time senior lecturer and researcher.

His teaching experience spans several universities, colleges and continuing education providers. Starting from 2012-2017 as a lecturer at the University of St. Gallen, he held tutorials on macroeconomics and microeconomics and supervised the academic term paper that students had to write in the assessment year. In 2017, he started teaching in the annual CAS Health Economics at zhaw on the topic of insurance economics. One year later, he took over the lecture "Social Health Insurance" in the Bachelor's program at the University of Zurich. Another year later, he started to give various lectures in the Master's program of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Lucerne. The Bern University of Applied Sciences also hired him as a lecturer in 2019 for the annual CAS Health Economics and Public Health. On two days per year, he teaches on the topic of insurance economics and international health systems. In 2023, he also taught in the CAS Health Insurance Law at the Centre for Civil Liability, Private and Social Insurance Laws (LIPS). In continuing education, Lukas lectures at CSS Insurance, SUVA and the Insurance Industry Vocational Training Association (vbv).

Furthermore, Lukas was a member of the Appraisal Panel of the Medical Tariff Commission (MTK) UVG from 2015-2023 as a representative of the Swiss Insurance Association (SVV). He sat on this panel as an expert in health economics for inquiries regarding the coverage of contested services.

Research

Methodologically, the principal focus is on quantitative causal analysis. Thematically, Lukas mainly studies the health insurance market, from the viewpoint of insurers, health care providers, and consumers.

As a member of the Risk Adjustment Network and during his research stay with Thomas McGuire at Harvard Medical School, one stream of research focuses on risk adjustment between insurers. How to design an efficient payment system, so that insurers covering high risks in a market with community-rated premiums are fairly compensated, without limiting the incentive for efficient care as well as increasing the possibilities for gaming? Should insurers' administrative costs also be included in risk equalization, and if so, how?

Managed care is an interesting approach to reducing rising healthcare costs. The consumer gives up his or her free choice of physician and joins a gatekeeper who, as part of a network, takes over the care and management of the patient. Often, the financial incentives for gatekeepers are also changed. In his study, Lukas was able to show that the savings in these models are sustainable over the long term and presumably come from the treating physician being able to discourage patients from making unnecessary visits to a doctor.

Vaccination is another field of research. Can the demand for the flu vaccination be sustainably increased by a letter informing customers on its new availability at the pharmacy? How did the Covid 19 vaccination progress in German-speaking countries particularly from a procedural point of view?

In his dissertation, Lukas studied the integration of people with a disability into the labor market and into education. He was able to show that mentally ill people in particular are discriminated against when applying for an apprenticeship or a place at a university. However, subsidies for the employment of apprenticeship graduates with disabilities are hardly helpful. On the other hand, recipients of disability benefits and their spouses hardly react to reductions in their benefits.

During his time at the ZHAW, Lukas wrote several reports on cost-benefit analyses of prevention and workplace health promotion.

Publications

Achievements