Assessing the impact of drug use on hospital costs.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To assess whether outpatient prescription drug utilization produces offsets in the cost of hospitalization for Medicare beneficiaries.

Data sources/study setting

The study analyzed a sample (N=3,101) of community-dwelling fee-for-service U.S. Medicare beneficiaries drawn from the 1999 and 2000 Medicare Current Beneficiary Surveys.

Study design

Using a two-part model specification, we regressed any hospital admission (part 1: probit) and hospital spending by those with one or more admissions (part 2: nonlinear least squares regression) on drug use in a standard model with strong covariate controls and a residual inclusion instrumental variable (IV) model using an exogenous measure of drug coverage as the instrument.

Principal findings

The covariate con

SUBMITTER: Stuart BC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2669633 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature