Does long-term care subsidization reduce hospital admissions and utilization?

Costa-Font, Joan ORCID: 0000-0001-7174-7919, Jiménez-Martínez, Sergi and Vilaplana, Cristina (2018) Does long-term care subsidization reduce hospital admissions and utilization? Journal of Health Economics, 58. pp. 43-66. ISSN 0167-6296

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Abstract

We use quasi-experimental evidence on the expansion of the public subsidization of long-term care to examine the causal effect of a change in caregiving affordability on the delivery of hospital care. More specifically, we examine a reform that both introduced a new caregiving allowance and expanded the availability of publicly funded home care services, on both hospital admissions (both on the internal and external margin) and length of stay. We find robust evidence of a reduction in both hospital admissions and utilization among both those receiving a caregiving allowance and, albeit less intensely, among beneficiaries of publicly funded home care, which amounts to 11% of total healthcare costs. These effects were stronger when regions had an operative regional health and social care coordination plan in place. Consistently, a subsequent reduction in the subsidy, five years after its implementation, is found to significantly attenuate such effects. We investigate a number of potential mechanisms, and show a number of falsification and robustness checks

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-healt...
Additional Information:	© 2018 Elsevier
Divisions:	Health Policy
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HJ Public Finance H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
JEL classification:	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
Date Deposited:	05 Feb 2018 15:30
Last Modified:	18 Apr 2024 06:48
Projects:	ECO2014-52238-R, ECO2014-53419-R
Funders:	Spanish Ministry of Economy
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/86651

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