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Returns to specialization: Evidence from the outpatient surgery market
- Source :
- Journal of Health Economics. 57:147-167
- Publication Year :
- 2018
- Publisher :
- Elsevier BV, 2018.
-
Abstract
- Technological changes in medicine have created new opportunities to provide surgical care in lower cost, specialized facilities. This paper examines patient outcomes in ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), which were developed as a low-cost alternative to outpatient surgery in hospitals. Because we are concerned that selection into ASCs may bias estimates of facility quality, we use predicted changes in federally set Medicare facility payment rates as an instrument for ASC utilization to estimate the effect of location of treatment on patient outcomes. We find that patients treated in an ASC are less likely to be admitted to a hospital or visit an emergency room a short time after outpatient surgery. The findings in this paper indicate that factors other than patient and physician heterogeneity contribute to the observed returns to specialization in the ASC market.
- Subjects :
- Male
medicine.medical_specialty
media_common.quotation_subject
Outpatient surgery
Hospital quality
Medicare
Ambulatory Care Facilities
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Specialization (functional)
Humans
Medicine
030212 general & internal medicine
Aged
Quality of Health Care
media_common
business.industry
030503 health policy & services
Health Policy
Surgical care
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
Payment
United States
Ambulatory Surgical Procedures
Ambulatory
Emergency medicine
Female
Lower cost
0305 other medical science
business
Specialization
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 01676296
- Volume :
- 57
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Health Economics
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....e304cacc85846abee139aa968f5ec472