Showing papers by "David Dranove published in 2006"
TL;DR: It is found that neither integration nor disintegration was associated with significant changes in prices, and integration among rural hospitals is associated with large price decreases, but the sample of such hospitals is small.
112 citations
TL;DR: A reexamination of David Himmelstein and colleagues' data suggests that medical bills are a contributing factor in just 17 percent of personal bankruptcies and that those affected tend to have incomes closer to poverty level than to middle class.
Abstract: David Himmelstein and colleagues recently contended that medical problems contribute to 54.5 percent of personal bankruptcies and threaten the solvency of solidly middle-class Americans. They propose comprehensive national health insurance as a solution. A reexamination of their data suggests that medical bills are a contributing factor in just 17 percent of personal bankruptcies and that those affected tend to have incomes closer to poverty level than to middle class. Moreover, for national health insurance to have an impact, it would have to define “medical” expenses in a much broader way than is now typical of either private or government-funded plans.
100 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate whether managers who fail to exploit regulatory loopholes are vulnerable to replacement and find that "room to upcode" is a statistically and economically significant predictor of whether a hospital replaces its management with a new team of for-profit managers.
Abstract: This paper investigates whether managers who fail to exploit regulatory loopholes are vulnerable to replacement. We use the U.S. hospital industry in 1985-1996 as a case study. A 1988 change in Medicare rules widened a pre-existing loophole in the Medicare payment system, presenting hospitals with an opportunity to increase operating margins by five or more percentage points simply by "upcoding" patients to more lucrative codes. We find that "room to upcode" is a statistically and economically significant predictor of whether a hospital replaces its management with a new team of for-profit managers. We also find that hospitals replacing their management subsequently upcode more than a sample of similar hospitals that did not, as identified by propensity scores.
5 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate whether managers who fail to exploit regulatory loopholes are vulnerable to replacement and find that "room to upcode" is a statistically and economically significant predictor of whether a hospital replaces its management with a new team of for-profit managers.
Abstract: This paper investigates whether managers who fail to exploit regulatory loopholes are vulnerable to replacement. We use the U.S. hospital industry in 1985-1996 as a case study. A 1988 change in Medicare rules widened a pre-existing loophole in the Medicare payment system, presenting hospitals with an opportunity to increase operating margins by five or more percentage points simply by "upcoding" patients to more lucrative codes. We find that "room to upcode" is a statistically and economically significant predictor of whether a hospital replaces its management with a new team of for-profit managers. We also find that hospitals replacing their management subsequently upcode more than a sample of similar hospitals that did not, as identified by propensity scores.
5 citations
2 citations