Hospital Financial Conditions and the Provision of Unprofitable Services

Hsueh-Fen Chen (), Gloria Bazzoli and Hui-Min Hsieh

Atlantic Economic Journal, 2009, vol. 37, issue 3, 259-277

Abstract: Increases in hospital financial pressure resulting from public and private payment policy may substantially reduce a hospital’s ability to provide certain services that are not well compensated or are frequently used by the uninsured. The objective of this study is to examine the impact of hospital financial condition on the provision of these unprofitable services for the insured and uninsured. Economic theory provides the conceptual underpinnings for the analysis, and a longitudinal empirical analysis is conducted for an eight-year study period. The results indicate that not-for-profit hospitals with strong financial performance provide more unprofitable services for the insured and uninsured than do not-for-profit hospitals with weaker condition. For-profit hospital provision of these services is not influenced by their financial condition and instead may reflect actions to meet community expectations or to offer a sufficiently broad service array to maintain the business of insured patients. Copyright International Atlantic Economic Society 2009

Keywords: Hospital financial condition; Unprofitable services; Insured patients; Uninsured patients; I00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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DOI: 10.1007/s11293-009-9183-9

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