Healthcare Demand under Simple Prices: Evidence from Tiered Hospital Networks

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Prager, Elena
• 署名单位: Northwestern University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20180422
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 196-223
• 关键词: medicare part d; transparency tool; moral hazard; insurance; COMPETITION; endogeneity; inertia; CHOICE; budget; IMPACT

摘要

This paper shows that consumers respond to prices for complex healthcare when they can easily assess out-of-pocket prices. Healthcare cost containment efforts increasingly incentivize price shopping despite a dearth of evidence that this steers consumers toward lower-priced care for major medical services. I show that consumers shift toward lower-priced hospitals in the highly simplified price information environment of insurance plans with tiered hospital networks. Consumers observe a single predictable, well-defined price that applies to a broad range of services within each of at most three hospital tiers. Within three years, expected partial-equilibrium savings reach 8-17 percent of baseline spending.