IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/8697.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is More Information Better? The Effects of 'Report Cards' on Health Care Providers

Author

Listed:
  • David Dranove
  • Daniel Kessler
  • Mark McClellan
  • Mark Satterthwaite

Abstract

Health care report cards - public disclosure of patient health outcomes at the level of the individual physician and/or hospital - may address important informational asymmetries in markets for health care, but they may also give doctors and hospitals incentives to decline to treat more difficult, severely ill patients. Whether report cards are good for patients and for society depends on whether their financial and health benefits outweigh their costs in terms of the quantity, quality, and appropriateness of medical treatment that they induce. Using national data on Medicare patients at risk for cardiac surgery, we find that cardiac surgery report cards in New York and Pennsylvania led both to selection behavior by providers and to improved matching of patients with hospitals. On net, this led to higher levels of resource use and to worse health outcomes, particularly for sicker patients. We conclude that, at least in the short run, these report cards decreased patient and social welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • David Dranove & Daniel Kessler & Mark McClellan & Mark Satterthwaite, 2002. "Is More Information Better? The Effects of 'Report Cards' on Health Care Providers," NBER Working Papers 8697, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8697
    Note: AG EH
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w8697.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel P. Kessler & Mark B. McClellan, 2000. "Is Hospital Competition Socially Wasteful?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 115(2), pages 577-615.
    2. Cory S. Capps & David Dranove & Shane Greenstein & Mark Satterthwaite, 2001. "The Silent Majority Fallacy of the Elzinga-Hogarty Criteria: A Critique and New Approach to Analyzing Hospital Mergers," NBER Working Papers 8216, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. David Dranove & Mark A. Satterthwaite, 1992. "Monopolistic Competition When Price and Quality are Imperfectly Observable," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 23(4), pages 518-534, Winter.
    4. Daniel Kessler & Mark McClellan, 2001. "The Effects of Hospital Ownership on Medical Productivity," NBER Working Papers 8537, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Martin Gaynor, "undated". "What Do We Know About Competition and Quality in Health Care Markets?," GSIA Working Papers 2006-E62, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    2. Kurt R. Brekke & Luigi Siciliani & Odd Rune Straume, 2011. "Hospital Competition and Quality with Regulated Prices," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 113(2), pages 444-469, June.
    3. Zack Cooper & Stephen Gibbons & Simon Jones & Alistair McGuire, 2011. "Does Hospital Competition Save Lives? Evidence From The English NHS Patient Choice Reforms," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(554), pages 228-260, August.
    4. Zhao, Xin, 2016. "Competition, information, and quality: Evidence from nursing homes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 136-152.
    5. Hsien‐Ming Lien & Shin‐Yi Chou & Jin‐Tan Liu, 2010. "The Role Of Hospital Competition On Treatment Expenditure And Outcome: Evidence From Stroke And Cardiac Treatment In Taiwan," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(3), pages 668-689, July.
    6. Gaynor, Martin & Town, Robert J., 2011. "Competition in Health Care Markets," Handbook of Health Economics, in: Mark V. Pauly & Thomas G. Mcguire & Pedro P. Barros (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 499-637, Elsevier.
    7. Piia Pekola & Ismo Linnosmaa & Hennamari Mikkola, 2017. "Does Competition Have an Effect on Price and Quality in Physiotherapy?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(10), pages 1278-1290, October.
    8. Grabowski, David C. & Hirth, Richard A., 2003. "Competitive spillovers across non-profit and for-profit nursing homes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 1-22, January.
    9. Chou, Shin-Yi & Deily, Mary E. & Li, Suhui & Lu, Yi, 2014. "Competition and the impact of online hospital report cards," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 42-58.
    10. Bingxiao Wu & Jeah Jung & Hyunjee Kim & Daniel Polsky, 2019. "Entry regulation and the effect of public reporting: Evidence from Home Health Compare," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(4), pages 492-516, April.
    11. Daifeng He & R. Tamara Konetzka, 2015. "Public Reporting and Demand Rationing: Evidence from the Nursing Home Industry," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(11), pages 1437-1451, November.
    12. Susan Feng Lu, 2012. "Multitasking, Information Disclosure, and Product Quality: Evidence from Nursing Homes," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 673-705, September.
    13. McClellan Mark & Staiger Douglas, 2000. "Comparing the Quality of Health Care Providers," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-26, January.
    14. Amitabh Chandra & Amy Finkelstein & Adam Sacarny & Chad Syverson, 2016. "Health Care Exceptionalism? Performance and Allocation in the US Health Care Sector," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(8), pages 2110-2144, August.
    15. Filistrucchi, L. & Ozbugday, F.C., 2012. "Mandatory Quality Disclosure and Quality Supply : Evidence from German Hospitals," Other publications TiSEM 680b0e3e-d3f5-4b91-9803-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    16. Wuckel, Christiane, 2022. "The impact of structural and strategic competition on hospital quality," Ruhr Economic Papers 959, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    17. Gu, Yiquan & Rasch, Alexander & Wenzel, Tobias, 2022. "Consumer salience and quality provision in (un)regulated public service markets," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    18. Pan, Jay & Qin, Xuezheng & Li, Qian & Messina, Joseph P. & Delamater, Paul L., 2015. "Does hospital competition improve health care delivery in China?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 179-199.
    19. R. R. Croes & Y. J. F. M. Krabbe-Alkemade & M. C. Mikkers, 2018. "Competition and quality indicators in the health care sector: empirical evidence from the Dutch hospital sector," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 19(1), pages 5-19, January.
    20. Xufeng Qian & Louise Russell & Elmira Valiyeva & Jane Miller, 2005. "New Evidence on Medicare's Prospective Payment System: A Survival Analysis based on the NHANES I Epidemiologic Followup Study," Departmental Working Papers 200506, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • L5 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:8697. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.