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Does Seeing the Doctor More Often Keep You Out of the Hospital?

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  • Robert Kaestner
  • Anthony T. Lo Sasso

Abstract

By exploiting a unique health insurance benefit design, we provide novel evidence on the causal association between outpatient and inpatient care. Our results indicate that greater outpatient spending was associated with more hospital admissions: a $100 increase in outpatient spending was associated with a 2.7% increase in the probability of having an inpatient event and a 4.6% increase in inpatient spending among enrollees in our sample. Moreover, we present evidence that the increase in hospital admissions associated with greater outpatient spending was for conditions in which it is plausible to argue that the physician and patient could exercise discretion.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Kaestner & Anthony T. Lo Sasso, 2012. "Does Seeing the Doctor More Often Keep You Out of the Hospital?," NBER Working Papers 18255, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18255
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    Cited by:

    1. Toshiaki Iizuka & Hitoshi Shigeoka, 2018. "Free for Children? Patient Cost-sharing and Healthcare Utilization," NBER Working Papers 25306, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Gehrsitz, Markus & Williams, Jr., Morgan C., 2024. "The Effects of Compulsory Schooling on Health and Hospitalization over the Life Cycle," IZA Discussion Papers 17050, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Keegan, Conor & Brick, Aoife & García-Rodríguez, Abián & Hill, Leonie, 2022. "Projections of workforce requirements for public acute hospitals in Ireland, 2019–2035: a regional analysis based on the hippocrates model," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS147.
    4. Péter Elek & Tamás Molnár & Balázs Váradi, 2019. "The closer the better: does better access to outpatient care prevent hospitalization?," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 20(6), pages 801-817, August.
    5. Wen He, 2022. "Effects of establishing a financing scheme for outpatient care on inpatient services: empirical evidence from a quasi-experiment in China," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 23(1), pages 7-22, February.
    6. Markus Gehrsitz & Morgan C. Williams, "undated". "The Effects of Compulsory Schooling on Health and Hospitalization over the Life Cycle," Working Papers 2303, University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics, revised May 2020.
    7. Chen Jiajia & van den Berghe Eunkyung & Kaestner Robert, 2019. "Is Primary Care A Substitute or Complement for Other Medical Care? Evidence from Medicaid," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 22(1), pages 1-36, June.
    8. Yuanyuan Ma & Anne Nolan, 2017. "Public Healthcare Entitlements and Healthcare Utilisation among the Older Population in Ireland," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(11), pages 1412-1428, November.
    9. L. F. Andrade & T. Rapp & C. Sevilla-Dedieu, 2018. "Quality of diabetes follow-up care and hospital admissions," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 153-167, June.
    10. Walsh, Brendan & Nolan, Anne & Brick, Aoife & Keegan, Conor, 2019. "Did the expansion of free GP care impact demand for Emergency Department attendances? A difference-in-differences analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 101-111.
    11. Engy Ziedan & Kosali I. Simon & Coady Wing, 2022. "Mortality Effects of Healthcare Supply Shocks: Evidence Using Linked Deaths and Electronic Health Records," NBER Working Papers 30553, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I13 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Insurance, Public and Private

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