IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hrv/faseco/2643640.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Lifetime Costs and Benefits of Medical Technology

Author

Listed:
  • Cutler, David

Abstract

Measuring the lifetime costs and benefits of medical technologies is essential in evaluating technological change and determining the productivity of medical care. Using data on Medicare beneficiaries with a heart attack in the late 1980s and 17 years of follow up data, I evaluate the long-term costs and benefits of revascularization after a heart attack. I account for non-random selection into treatment with instrumental variables; following McClellan, McNeil, and Newhouse, the instrument is the differential distance to a hospital capable of providing revascularization. The results show that revascularization is associated with over 1 year of additional life expectancy, at a cost of about $40,000. Revascularization, or other treatments correlated with it, appears to be highly cost-effective.

Suggested Citation

  • Cutler, David, 2007. "The Lifetime Costs and Benefits of Medical Technology," Scholarly Articles 2643640, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hrv:faseco:2643640
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/2643640/cutler_lifetimecosts.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Newey, Whitney K, 1990. "Efficient Instrumental Variables Estimation of Nonlinear Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(4), pages 809-837, July.
    2. Garber, Alan M. & Phelps, Charles E., 1997. "Economic foundations of cost-effectiveness analysis," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 1-31, February.
    3. Robert S. Huckman & Gary P. Pisano, 2006. "The Firm Specificity of Individual Performance: Evidence from Cardiac Surgery," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(4), pages 473-488, April.
    4. Joseph P. Newhouse, 1992. "Medical Care Costs: How Much Welfare Loss?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 3-21, Summer.
    5. Amitabh Chandra & Douglas O. Staiger, 2007. "Productivity Spillovers in Health Care: Evidence from the Treatment of Heart Attacks," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(1), pages 103-140.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cutler, David M., 2007. "The lifetime costs and benefits of medical technology," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1081-1100, December.
    2. Amitabh Chandra & Jonathan S. Skinner, 2011. "Technology Growth and Expenditure Growth in Health Care," NBER Working Papers 16953, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Karine Lamiraud & Stephane Lhuillery, 2016. "Endogenous Technology Adoption and Medical Costs," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(9), pages 1123-1147, September.
    4. Contreras Juan & Patel Elena & Tristao Ignez, 2013. "Production Factors, Productivity Dynamics and Quality Gains as Determinants of Healthcare Spending Growth in U.S. Hospitals," Working Papers 2013-13, Banco de México.
    5. Meltzer, David, 1997. "Accounting for future costs in medical cost-effectiveness analysis," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 33-64, February.
    6. Soroush Saghafian & Wallace J. Hopp, 2020. "Can Public Reporting Cure Healthcare? The Role of Quality Transparency in Improving Patient–Provider Alignment," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 68(1), pages 71-92, January.
    7. Jena, Anupam B. & Philipson, Tomas J., 2013. "Endogenous cost-effectiveness analysis and health care technology adoption," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 172-180.
    8. Alan M. Garber & Jonathan Skinner, 2008. "Is American Health Care Uniquely Inefficient?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(4), pages 27-50, Fall.
    9. Jeffrey Clemens, 2012. "The Effect of U.S. Health Insurance Expansions on Medical Innovation," Discussion Papers 11-016, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    10. Anirban Basu, 2012. "Estimating Person-Centered Treatment (PeT) Effects Using Instrumental Variables," NBER Working Papers 18056, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Frank R. Lichtenberg & Johannes Schoder, 2010. "Impact of Specialization on Health Outcomes – Evidence from U.S. Cancer Data," SOI - Working Papers 1011, Socioeconomic Institute - University of Zurich.
    12. Anne E. Hall, 2015. "Regional Patterns in Medical Technology Utilization," BEA Working Papers 0126, Bureau of Economic Analysis.
    13. Amitabh Chandra & Jonathan Skinner, 2012. "Technology Growth and Expenditure Growth in Health Care," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(3), pages 645-680, September.
    14. Leila Agha & David Molitor, 2018. "The Local Influence of Pioneer Investigators on Technology Adoption: Evidence from New Cancer Drugs," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(1), pages 29-44, March.
    15. Maynou, L. & McGuire, A. & Serra-Sastre, V., 2019. "Exploring the Impact of New Medical Technology on Workforce Planning," Working Papers 19/07, Department of Economics, City University London.
    16. Mas, Nuria & Valentini, Giovanni, 2012. "The importance of technology in the consolidation of hospital markets. The case of the United States," IESE Research Papers D/953, IESE Business School.
    17. Karine Lamiraud & Stéphane Lhuillery, 2015. "Endogenous Technology Adoption and Medical Costs," Working Papers hal-01218064, HAL.
    18. Maynou, Laia & Pearson, Georgia & McGuire, Alistair & Serra-Sastre, Victoria, 2022. "The diffusion of robotic surgery: Examining technology use in the English NHS," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(4), pages 325-336.
    19. Lucarelli, Claudio & Nicholson, Sean & Tilipman, Nicholas, 2022. "Price Indices and the Value of Innovation with Heterogenous Patients," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    20. Jena, Anupam B. & Philipson, Tomas J., 2008. "Cost-effectiveness analysis and innovation," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 1224-1236, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hrv:faseco:2643640. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Office for Scholarly Communication (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deharus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.