title: Managed care and technical efficiency.
abstract: By focusing exclusively on consumer benefit, previous studies of the effects of managed care have ignored important hospital efficiency gains. This study uses the HCUP sample of hospitals for 1992-1996 to estimate a stochastic frontier model of hospital technical efficiency. After controlling for hospital and market area variables, the study finds strong evidence that increased managed care insurance in a given market is associated with improved technical efficiency in the area's hospitals, especially in tertiary cases. Using Battese and Coelli's one-stage method (1995), the coefficients estimates are more efficient than for two-stage methods found in the literature.
authors.affiliation: UT School of Public Health, Brownsville RAHC, Texas 78520, USA.
authors.forename: H Shelton
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Brown
mesh_terms: D017598:Efficiency, Organizational / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data* / Q000639:trends; D006279:Health Maintenance Organizations; D006302:Health Services Research; D006739:Hospital Administration / Q000191:economics / Q000592:standards; D006777:Hospitals, Proprietary; D006779:Hospitals, Public; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006788:Hospitals, Voluntary; D006801:Humans; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D008329:Managed Care Programs / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017059:Models, Econometric; D010067:Ownership; D011243:Preferred Provider Organizations; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D013269:Stochastic Processes; D014481:United States