Within-year variation in hospital utilization and its implications for hospital costs

Variability in demand for hospital services may have important effects on hospital costs, but this has been difficult to examine because data on within-year variations in hospital use have not been available for large samples of hospitals. We measure daily occupancy in California hospitals and exami...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of health economics 2004, Vol.23 (1), p.191-211
Main Authors: Baker, Laurence C., Phibbs, Ciaran S., Guarino, Cassandra, Supina, Dylan, Reynolds, James L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bed Occupancy - statistics & numerical data
Bed Occupancy - trends
California
Capacity
Comparative analysis
Cost analysis
Costs
Demand
Economics
Health
Health administration
Health economics
Health Facility Merger
Health Services Needs and Demand - economics
Health services utilization
Hospital capacity
Hospital costs
Hospital Costs - statistics & numerical data
Hospital Costs - trends
Hospital demand
Hospital utilization
Hospitals
Hospitals - utilization
Humans
Impact analysis
Mergers
Models, Econometric
Studies
U.S.A
United States
USA
Users
Utilization Review
Variability
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Summary:Variability in demand for hospital services may have important effects on hospital costs, but this has been difficult to examine because data on within-year variations in hospital use have not been available for large samples of hospitals. We measure daily occupancy in California hospitals and examine variation in hospital utilization at the daily level. We find substantial day-to-day variation in hospital utilization, and noticeable differences between hospitals in the amount of day-to-day variation in utilization. We examine the impact of variation on hospital costs, showing that increases in variance are associated with increases in hospital expenditures, but that the effects are qualitatively modest.
ISSN:0167-6296
1879-1646
DOI:10.1016/j.jhealeco.2003.09.005