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Check Up Before You Check Out: Retail Clinics and Emergency Room Use

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  • Diane Alexander
  • Janet Currie
  • Molly Schnell

Abstract

The retail clinic is an innovation that has the potential to improve competition in health care markets. Given concern about inefficient use of the emergency room (ER) increasing health care costs, we use all ER visits in New Jersey from 2006-2014 to examine the impact of retail clinics on ER usage. We find that people residing close to an open clinic are 4.1-12.3 percent less likely to use an ER for preventable conditions and for minor acute conditions. Our estimates suggest annual cost savings of over $70 million from reduced ER usage if retail clinics were readily available across New Jersey.

Suggested Citation

  • Diane Alexander & Janet Currie & Molly Schnell, 2017. "Check Up Before You Check Out: Retail Clinics and Emergency Room Use," NBER Working Papers 23585, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23585
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Alexander, Diane & Currie, Janet, 2017. "Are publicly insured children less likely to be admitted to hospital than the privately insured (and does it matter)?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 33-51.
    3. Joseph J. Doyle, 2005. "Health Insurance, Treatment and Outcomes: Using Auto Accidents as Health Shocks," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(2), pages 256-270, May.
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    6. David Card & Carlos Dobkin & Nicole Maestas, 2009. "Does Medicare Save Lives?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(2), pages 597-636.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Kyle Butts, 2021. "Difference-in-Differences with Geocoded Microdata," Papers 2110.10192, arXiv.org.
    2. Hastings, Justine S. & Howison, Mark, 2021. "Predicting Divertible Medicaid Emergency Department Costs," OSF Preprints q36es, Center for Open Science.
    3. Lindsay Allen & Janet R. Cummings & Jason Hockenberry, 2019. "Urgent Care Centers and the Demand for Non-Emergent Emergency Department Visits," NBER Working Papers 25428, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Bhalotra, Sonia R. & Nunes, Letícia & Rocha, Rudi, 2020. "Urgent Care Centers, Hospital Performance and Population Health," IZA Discussion Papers 13992, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Shooshan Danagoulian & Daniel Grossman & David Slusky, 2022. "Health Care Following Environmental Disasters: Evidence from Flint," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(4), pages 1060-1089, September.
    6. Zeltzer, Dan & Einav, Liran & Chasid, Avichai & Balicer, Ran D., 2021. "Supply-side variation in the use of emergency departments," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    7. Campos, Rodger, 2024. "Keep One's Eyes on the Ball: The Impact of Sport Arena on Housing Price," TD NEREUS 11-2024, Núcleo de Economia Regional e Urbana da Universidade de São Paulo (NEREUS).
    8. John Brownstein & Jonathan H. Cantor & Benjamin Rader & Kosali I. Simon & Christopher M. Whaley, 2022. "If You Build it, Will They Vaccinate? The Impact of COVID-19 Vaccine Sites on Vaccination Rates and Outcomes," NBER Working Papers 30429, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Bhalotra, Sonia & Nunes, Letícia & Rocha, Rudi, 2023. "Emergency Care Centers, Hospital Performance and Population Health," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 659, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    10. Rubli, Adrian, 2023. "Trade-offs between access and quality in healthcare: Evidence from retail clinics in Mexico," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    11. Stephenson Strobel, 2023. "Waiting for Dr. Godot: how much and who responds to predicted health care wait times?," Papers 2309.13219, arXiv.org.
    12. Bancalari, Antonella & Bernal, Pedro & Celhay, Pablo & Martinez, Sebastian & Sánchez, Maria Deni, 2023. "An Ounce of Prevention for a Pound of Cure: Efficiency of Community-Based Healthcare," IZA Discussion Papers 16350, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Bancalari, Antonella & Bernal, Pedro & Celhay, Pablo & Martinez, Sebastian & Sánchez, María Deni, 2024. "An Ounce of Prevention for a Pound of Cure: Basic Health Care and Efficiency in Health Systems," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 13433, Inter-American Development Bank.
    14. David, Guy & Smith-McLallen, Aaron & Ukert, Benjamin, 2019. "The effect of predictive analytics-driven interventions on healthcare utilization," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 68-79.
    15. Pinchbeck, Edward W., 2019. "Convenient primary care and emergency hospital utilisation," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    16. Andrea Cintolesi & Andrea Riganti, 2022. "Liberalizing the opening of new pharmacies and hospitalizations," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1388, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    17. Butts, Kyle, 2023. "JUE Insight: Difference-in-differences with geocoded microdata," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    18. Strobel, Stephenson, 2024. "Who responds to longer wait times? The effects of predicted emergency wait times on the health and volume of patients who present for care," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    19. Emek Basker & Randy A. Becker & Lucia Foster & T. Kirk White & Alice Zawacki, 2019. "Addressing Data Gaps: Four New Lines of Inquiry in the 2017 Economic Census," Working Papers 19-28, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.

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    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets

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