Medicare Advantage penetration and the financial distress of rural hospitals.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Medicare Advantage (MA) penetration rates have shown an increase in rural areas in the past decade, increasing the bargaining power of MA plans relative to rural hospitals. We study the effect that this increase has had in the revenue of rural hospitals through reductions in the number of inpatient days paid by the plans, which has been reported to be part of the financial bargaining between the two parties.

Methods

We use 2014-2020 hospital level data from the American Hospital Association's annual survey and county-level MA penetration rates. We estimate the correlation between MA penetration rates and Medicare and non-Medicare inpatient days using multivariate regressions with hospital and year fixed effects. We use results for urban areas where competition amo

SUBMITTER: Cataife G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11817615 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature