Non-profit hospital mergers: the effect on healthcare costs and utilization

Maysam Rabbani ()
Additional contact information
Maysam Rabbani: University of South Florida
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Maysam Rabbani and Maysam Qadimi Rabbani

International Journal of Health Economics and Management, 2021, vol. 21, issue 4, No 2, 427-455

Abstract: Abstract I use a 2010 non-profit hospital merger in Ohio to study the effect of market concentration on market outcomes. Using the Synthetic Control Method and Truven MarketScan data, I document three findings. First, courts are lenient to non-profit mergers, and I cast doubt on this practice by showing that the studied merger led to a 123% increase in the payments for inpatient childbirth services. Second, I provide the first empirical evidence for the conjecture that mergers increase out-of-pocket payments and reduce the utilization of care. Last, I show that the effect of market power on market outcomes is asymmetric: the increase in payments and welfare loss created by a merger persist after the merger is rescinded. Thus, even successful FTC challenges may not revert the effect of harmful mergers, and it is essential to deny such mergers before they proceed.

Keywords: Mergers and acquisitions; Non-profit hospital; Healthcare cost and utilization; Federal Trade Commission; Market power (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I11 L11 L30 L40 L44 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10754-021-09303-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:ijhcfe:v:21:y:2021:i:4:d:10.1007_s10754-021-09303-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... th/journal/10754/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10754-021-09303-8

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Health Economics and Management is currently edited by Leemore Dafny, Robert Town, Mark Pauly, David Dranove and Pedro Pita Barros

More articles in International Journal of Health Economics and Management from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().