Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Yesterday, I discussed the idea of managed competition in California. One of the original tenets of managed competition was insurers having integrated, mutually exclusive provider networks. This would mean much more consolidation on the provider side. While this could improve quality, there is also a risk that prices could rise. In fact, this is what…
Conventional wisdom holds that in recent years the answer is ‘yes’, however what does the data show? A paper by Nipay, Richards and Penso (2018) uses an SK&A survey of physician office practices between 2007 and 2017 to find the answer. In short, conventional wisdom is largely true with the caveat that there is significant…
The effect of health care industry consolidation on prices is a question argued about by many including researchers, economists, anti-trust, lawyers, regulators and more. There is evidence that health plan consolidation increases premiums, and hospital consolidation increases price. For instance, Dafny et al. 2015 writes: The harsh reality is that it’s difficult to find well-documented…
An interesting report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation summarizes the literature describing the effect of hospital concentration in a market on prices and quality. The general consensus from the literature is the following: Increases in hospital market concentration lead to increases in the price of hospital care Hospital mergers in concentrated markets generally lead…