Analysis of hospital length of stay and discharge destination using hazard functions with unmeasured heterogeneity.
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.
Picone
Gabriel
G
Department of Economics, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620, USA. gpicone@coba.usf.edu
Mark Wilson
R
R
Chou
Shin-Yi
SY
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