Healthcare Economist June 30, 2022
How do efficiently is care provided for patients at Veteran Affairs’ hospitals as compared to private hospitals? This is not an easy question to answer as the composition of patients differs between these hospitals. Even among dually-eligible individuals–those with both VA and commercial insurance–individuals treated at VA hospitals are generally more severely ill.
To better answer this question, a recent NBER paper by Chan, Card and Taylor (2022) uses an quasi-experimental design looking at differences in hospital choice that occur due to randomness of ambulance dispatches following a 911 emergency call. The authors use claims data from the VA and Medicare to conduct this analysis. Using this approach, they find that:
Veterans who were induced by the ambulance company...
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