Quality and hospital choice for cataract treatments: the winner takes most

Suzanne Ruwaard and Rudy Douven ()
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Rudy Douven: CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis

No 272, CPB Discussion Paper from CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis

Abstract: We study the impact of quality on patient volume and hospital choice for cataract treatments. Our dataset covers the period 2006-2011 and includes all 854,613 patients who underwent a cataract treatment in the Netherlands. At the aggregate-level we find that, a one-point quality increase, on a scale of one to a hundred, would raise patient volume for the average hospital by 2-4%. This effect is mainly due to the performance of the top performing hospital. This effect halves after excluding this hospital from the dataset. Also at the individual-level, we find, all else being equal, that patients are willing to travel an additional 11km or more for the top performing as opposed to other hospitals. Our results suggest that the impact of quality on patient volume and willingness to travel is non-linear. Only the top performing hospital is able to attract significantly more patients.

JEL-codes: C25 D12 I11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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