Hospital discharge costs in competitive and regulatory environments.
To study the efficacy of America's current market-driven approaches to constrain health care expenditures, an analysis was undertaken of 1993 hospital discharge costs and related data of the 15 states in the United States with the highest percent of HMO market penetration. What is proposed herein to enhance hospital cost containment efforts is for a state to almost simultaneously use both market-driven and regulatory strategies similar to what was implemented in California over the last three decades and in Germany for the last 100 years.
Weil
T P
TP
Bedford Health Associates, Inc., Asheville, NC 28804, USA.
D003363:Cost Control / Q000379:methods; D004465:Economic Competition; D005161:Facility Regulation and Control; D005102:Health Expenditures / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006279:Health Maintenance Organizations / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006302:Health Services Research; D017721:Hospital Costs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends; D006278:Medicare / Q000191:economics; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000191:economics; D014481:United States; D014600:Utilization Review