IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jhecon/v27y2008i2p339-361.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Medicare reimbursement, nurse staffing, and patient outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Kaestner, Robert
  • Guardado, Jose

Abstract

There is widespread concern about the quality of health care in the US, and the effect of provider payments on the quality of care is an important and unsettled issue in this debate. The critical question is whether changes in provider payments affect health. To date there is relatively little research on this question. Here, we present evidence of the effect of plausibly exogenous changes in Medicare reimbursement - caused by geographical reclassification - on hospital staffing (nurses) and patient outcomes. We find that changes in Medicare reimbursement levels of approximately 10% have no meaningful effect on hospital use of resources or patient outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Kaestner, Robert & Guardado, Jose, 2008. "Medicare reimbursement, nurse staffing, and patient outcomes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 339-361, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:27:y:2008:i:2:p:339-361
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-6296(07)00108-7
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel P. Kessler & Mark McClellan, 1996. "Do Doctors Practice Defensive Medicine?," NBER Working Papers 5466, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Glazer, Jacob & McGuire, Thomas G., 2002. "Multiple payers, commonality and free-riding in health care: Medicare and private payers," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 1049-1069, November.
    3. Mark McClellan, 1997. "Hospital Reimbursement Incentives: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(1), pages 91-128, March.
    4. Martin Gaynor & James Rebitzer & Lowell Taylor, "undated". "Incentives in HMOs," GSIA Working Papers 2003-E21, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    5. Ellis, Randall P. & McGuire, Thomas G., 1996. "Hospital response to prospective payment: Moral hazard, selection, and practice-style effects," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 257-277, June.
    6. Gertler, Paul J & Waldman, Donald M, 1992. "Quality-Adjusted Cost Functions and Policy Evaluation in the Nursing Home Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(6), pages 1232-1256, December.
    7. McGuire, Thomas G., 2000. "Physician agency," Handbook of Health Economics,in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 9, pages 461-536 Elsevier.
    8. Daniel Polsky & Sean Nicholson, 2004. "Why Are Managed Care Plans Less Expensive: Risk Selection, Utilization, or Reimbursement?," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 71(1), pages 21-40.
    9. Gray, Bradley, 2001. "Do Medicaid physician fees for prenatal services affect birth outcomes?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 571-590, July.
    10. Currie, Janet & Gruber, Jonathan & Fischer, Michael, 1995. "Physician Payments and Infant Mortality: Evidence from Medicaid Fee Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 106-111, May.
    11. David C. Grabowski & Jonathan Gruber & Joseph J. Angelelli, 2006. "Nursing Home Quality as a Public Good," NBER Working Papers 12361, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Cutler, David M, 1995. "The Incidence of Adverse Medical Outcomes under Prospective Payment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(1), pages 29-50, January.
    13. Sloan, Frank A. & Picone, Gabriel A. & TaylorJr., Donald H. & Chou, Shin-Yi, 2001. "Hospital ownership and cost and quality of care: is there a dime's worth of difference?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 1-21, January.
    14. Glied, Sherry, 2000. "Managed care," Handbook of Health Economics,in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 707-753 Elsevier.
    15. Hodgkin, Dominic & McGuire, Thomas G., 1994. "Payment levels and hospital response to prospective payment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 1-29, March.
    16. Jason Barro & Nancy Beaulieu, 2003. "Selection and Improvement: Physician Responses to Financial Incentives," NBER Working Papers 10017, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Grabowski, David C., 2001. "Medicaid reimbursement and the quality of nursing home care," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 549-569, July.
    18. Daniel Kessler & Mark McClellan, 1996. "Do Doctors Practice Defensive Medicine?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 111(2), pages 353-390.
    19. Newhouse, Joseph P. & Byrne, Daniel J., 1988. "Did Medicare's Prospective Payment System cause length of stay to fall?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 413-416, December.
    20. Gruber, Jonathan, 1994. "The effect of competitive pressure on charity: Hospital responses to price shopping in California," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 183-211, July.
    21. David M. Cutler, 1998. "Cost Shifting or Cost Cutting? The Incidence of Reductions in Medicare Payments," NBER Chapters,in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 12, pages 1-28 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Gruber, Jon & Kim, John & Mayzlin, Dina, 1999. "Physician fees and procedure intensity: the case of cesarean delivery," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 473-490, August.
    23. Shen, Yu-Chu, 2003. "The effect of financial pressure on the quality of care in hospitals," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 243-269, March.
    24. Chalkley, Martin & Malcomson, James M., 2000. "Government purchasing of health services," Handbook of Health Economics,in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 15, pages 847-890 Elsevier.
    25. McClellan, Mark & Cutler, David & Newhous, Joseph P., 2000. "How Does Managed Care Do It?," Scholarly Articles 2643884, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Arndt R. Reichert & Magdalena A. Stroka, 2018. "Nursing home prices and quality of care — Evidence from administrative data," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 129-140, January.
    2. Arndt R. Reicher & Magdalena Stroka, 2014. "Nursing Home Prices and Quality of Care - Evidence from Administrative Data," Ruhr Economic Papers 0470, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    3. repec:kap:ijhcfe:v:18:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s10754-017-9232-x is not listed on IDEAS
    4. repec:zbw:rwirep:0470 is not listed on IDEAS

    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:eee:jhecon:v:27:y:2008:i:2:p:339-361. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dana Niculescu). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505560 .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.