IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/uwp/jhriss/v32y1997i4p611-634.html

Physician Fee Policy and Medicaid Program Costs

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan Gruber
  • Kathleen Adams
  • Joseph P. Newhouse

Abstract

We investigate the hypothesis that increasing access for the indigent to physicians' offices shifts care from hospital outpatient settings and lowers Medicaid costs (the so-called "offset effect"). To evaluate this hypothesis we exploit a large increase in physician fees in the Tennessee Medicaid program, using Georgia as a control. We find that beneficiaries shifted care from clinics to offices, but that there was little or no shifting from hospital outpatient departments or emergency rooms. Thus, we find no offset effect in outpatient expenditures. Inpatient admissions and expenditures fell, reducing overall program spending 8 percent. Because the inpatient reduction did not occur in ambulatory-care-sensitive diagnoses, however, we cannot demonstrate a causal relationship with the fee change.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan Gruber & Kathleen Adams & Joseph P. Newhouse, 1997. "Physician Fee Policy and Medicaid Program Costs," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 32(4), pages 611-634.
    • Handle: RePEc:uwp:jhriss:v:32:y:1997:i:4:p:611-634
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/146423
    Download Restriction: A subscription is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Jonathan Gruber, 2003. "Medicaid," NBER Chapters, in: Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, pages 15-78, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Thomas C. Buchmueller & Sean Orzol & Lara D. Shore-Sheppard, 2015. "The Effect of Medicaid Payment Rates on Access to Dental Care among Children," American Journal of Health Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(2), pages 194-223, Spring.
    3. Thomas Buchmueller & John C. Ham & Lara D. Shore-Sheppard, 2015. "The Medicaid Program," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume 1, pages 21-136, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Craig L. Garthwaite, 2011. "The Doctor Might See You Now: The Supply Side Effects of Public Health Insurance Expansions," NBER Working Papers 17070, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Jonathan Gruber, 1997. "Policy Watch: Medicaid and Uninsured Women and Children," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 199-208, Fall.
    6. Janet Currie & Jonathan Gruber, 1997. "The Technology of Birth: Health Insurance, Medical Interventions, and Infant Health," NBER Working Papers 5985, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Bradley Herring & E. Kathleen Adams, 2011. "Using HMOs to serve the Medicaid population: what are the effects on utilization and does the type of HMO matter?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(4), pages 446-460, April.
    8. Winnie Yip & Karen Eggleston, 2001. "Provider payment reform in China: the case of hospital reimbursement in Hainan province," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(4), pages 325-339, June.
    9. Hahn, Youjin, 2013. "The effect of Medicaid physician fees on take-up of public health insurance among children in poverty," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 452-462.
    10. Jonathan Gruber, 1997. "Health Insurance for Poor Women and Children in the US: Lessons from the Past Decade," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 11, pages 169-211, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    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:uwp:jhriss:v:32:y:1997:i:4:p:611-634. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://jhr.uwpress.org/ .

    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.