title: Is fragmented financing bad for your health?
abstract: Americans finance health care through a variety of private insurance plans and public programs. This organizational fragmentation could threaten continuity of care and adversely affect outcomes. Using a large sample of veterans who were eligible for mixtures of Veterans Health Administration- and Medicare-financed care, we estimate a system of equations to account for simultaneity in the determination of financing configuration and the probability of hospitalization for an ambulatory care sensitive condition. We find that a change of one standard deviation in financing fragmentation increases the risk of an adverse outcome by one-fifth.
authors: Health Care Financing and Economics, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 150 South Huntington Ave. (152H), Boston, MA 02130, USA. pizer@bu.edu
authors: Steven D
authors: SD
authors: Pizer
authors: John A
authors: JA
authors: Gardner
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D003266:Continuity of Patient Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006304:Health Status; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D019458:Insurance Coverage / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008297:Male; D006278:Medicare / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States; D014493:United States Department of Veterans Affairs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*