Working Paper: NBER ID: w18255
Authors: 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.
Keywords: outpatient care; inpatient care; health insurance; hospitalization; primary care
JEL Codes: I12; I13
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Outpatient spending (H51) | Hospital admissions (I19) |
| Outpatient spending (H51) | Inpatient spending (H51) |
| Increase in outpatient spending (H51) | Increase in hospital admissions for high discretion conditions (I12) |
| Outpatient spending (H51) | No association with admissions for low-discretion procedures (I11) |