TY - JOUR
T1 - Hospital concentration and low-income populations
T2 - Evidence from New York State Medicaid
AU - Desai, Sunita M.
AU - Padmanabhan, Prianca
AU - Chen, Alan Z.
AU - Lewis, Ashley
AU - Glied, Sherry A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023
PY - 2023/7
Y1 - 2023/7
N2 - While a large body of evidence has examined hospital concentration, its effects on health care for low-income populations are less explored. We use comprehensive discharge data from New York State to measure the effects of changes in market concentration on hospital-level inpatient Medicaid volumes. Holding fixed hospital factors constant, a one percent increase in HHI leads to a 0.6% (s.e. = 0.28%) decrease in the number of Medicaid admissions for the average hospital. The strongest effects are on admissions for birth (-1.3%, s.e. = 0.58%). These average hospital-level decreases largely reflect redistribution of Medicaid patients across hospitals, rather than overall reductions in hospitalizations for Medicaid patients. In particular, hospital concentration leads to a redistribution of admissions from non-profit hospitals to public hospitals. We find evidence that for births, physicians serving high shares of Medicaid beneficiaries in particular experience reduced admissions as concentration increased. These reductions may reflect preferences among these physicians or reduced admitting privileges by hospitals as a means to screen out Medicaid patients.
AB - While a large body of evidence has examined hospital concentration, its effects on health care for low-income populations are less explored. We use comprehensive discharge data from New York State to measure the effects of changes in market concentration on hospital-level inpatient Medicaid volumes. Holding fixed hospital factors constant, a one percent increase in HHI leads to a 0.6% (s.e. = 0.28%) decrease in the number of Medicaid admissions for the average hospital. The strongest effects are on admissions for birth (-1.3%, s.e. = 0.58%). These average hospital-level decreases largely reflect redistribution of Medicaid patients across hospitals, rather than overall reductions in hospitalizations for Medicaid patients. In particular, hospital concentration leads to a redistribution of admissions from non-profit hospitals to public hospitals. We find evidence that for births, physicians serving high shares of Medicaid beneficiaries in particular experience reduced admissions as concentration increased. These reductions may reflect preferences among these physicians or reduced admitting privileges by hospitals as a means to screen out Medicaid patients.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85160010299&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85160010299&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2023.102770
DO - 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2023.102770
M3 - Article
C2 - 37216773
AN - SCOPUS:85160010299
SN - 0167-6296
VL - 90
JO - Journal of Health Economics
JF - Journal of Health Economics
M1 - 102770
ER -