The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Policy Response on Health Care Utilization: Evidence from County-level Medical Claims and Cellphone data

Jonathan H. Cantor, Neeraj Sood, Dena Bravata, Megan Pera and Christopher Whaley

No 28131, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has forced federal, state and local policymakers to respond by legislating, enacting, and enforcing social distancing policies. However, the impact of these policies on healthcare utilization in the United States has been largely unexplored. We examine the impact of county-level shelter in place ordinances on healthcare utilization using two unique datasets—employer-sponsored insurance for over 6 million people in the US and cell phone location data. We find that introduction of these policies was associated with reductions in the use of preventive care, elective care, and the number of weekly visits to physician offices and hospitals. However, controlling for county-level exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic reduces the impact of these policies. Our results imply that while social distancing policies do lead to reductions in healthcare utilization, much of these reductions would have occurred even in the absence of these policies.

JEL-codes: I0 I1 I12 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-ias
Note: EH
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Published as Jonathan Cantor & Neeraj Sood & Dena M. Bravata & Megan Pera & Christopher Whaley, 2022. "The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and policy response on health care utilization: Evidence from county-level medical claims and cellphone data," Journal of Health Economics, .

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Journal Article: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and policy response on health care utilization: Evidence from county-level medical claims and cellphone data (2022)
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