Does long-term care subsidisation reduce unnecessary hospitalisations?

Costa-Font, Joan, Jiménez-Martínez, Sergi and Vilaplana, Cristina (2016) Does long-term care subsidisation reduce unnecessary hospitalisations? CESifo working papers, 6078. CESifo Group, Munich, Germany.

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Abstract

The expansion of long-term care (LTC) coverage may improve health system efficiency by reducing hospitalisations (bed-blocking), and pave the way for the implementation of health and social care coordination plans. We draw upon the quasi-experimental evidence from the main expansion of long term care increase subsidisation in Spain in 2007 to examine the causal effect of the expansion of LTC subsidisation and coordination on hospitalisations (both on the internal and external margin) and the hospital length of stay. In addition, we examine the 2012 austerity budget cuts that reduced the subsidy. We find robust evidence of a reduction in hospitalisations and the length of stay after the expansion of LTC subsidisation. However, the reduction in hospitalisations is heterogeneous to the existence of health and social care coordination plans and type of subsidy. Overall, we estimate savings related to hospitalisations of up to 11% of total hospital costs. Consistently, subsidy reduction is found to attenuate bed-blocking gains.

Item Type:	Monograph (Working Paper)
Official URL:	https://www.cesifo-group.de/ifoHome.html
Additional Information:	© 2016 The Authors
Library of Congress subject classification:	R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
Journal of Economic Literature Classification System:	H - Public Economics > H5 - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies > H53 - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health > I18 - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J14 - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped
Sets:	Departments > European Institute Departments > Social Policy Collections > Economists Online Research centres and groups > LSE Health and Social Care
Identification Number:	6078
Project and Funder Information:	Project ID Funder Name Funder ID ECO2014-52238-R Spanish Ministry of Economy UNSPECIFIED
Date Deposited:	30 Sep 2016 10:51
URL:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/67911/

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