title: Analysis of hospital length of stay and discharge destination using hazard functions with unmeasured heterogeneity.
abstract: The hospital length-of-stay and the discharge destination of a Medicare patient are the outcomes of one decision process involving the interests of the patient, the hospital, and the firms offering covered post-hospital care. We use a competing risk hazard estimation procedure and adjust for unobserved heterogeneity with a non-parametric technique to identify significant factors in the decision process. A patient's health and socio-economic characteristics, the availability of informal care, local market area conditions, and Medicare policies influence length-of-stay and discharge destination. The substitution we find between hospital and post-hospital care and among post-hospital care alternatives has policy implications for Medicare.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620, USA. gpicone@coba.usf.edu
authors.forename: Gabriel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Picone
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mark Wilson
authors.forename: Shin-Yi
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Chou
mesh_terms: D006302:Health Services Research; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006278:Medicare / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D017059:Models, Econometric; D010351:Patient Discharge / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010360:Patient Transfer / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011640:Public Policy