HMO plans, self-selection and utilization of health care services

Jaeun Shin and S. Moon

Applied Economics, 2007, vol. 39, issue 21, 2769-2784

Abstract: This study examines the effect of health maintenance organizations (HMOs) on the use of health care services among the privately insured, nonelderly population. To consider jointly the possible self-selection bias and high frequency of zero observations in the applied utilization measures, we accommodate the endogeneity of health plan choice decisions in the censored regression model. Using data from the 2000 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, we find strong evidence for favourable self-selection into HMO plans. Health maintenance organization enrollment is found to encourage greater use of office-based and hospital outpatient services. Overall satisfaction with the quality of care among HMO members is relatively low compared to that among nonHMO members. These findings suggest that more effort is needed to develop management strategies in HMOs in order to contain the moral hazard in utilization and assure the quality of service provided within the network of HMO providers.

Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00036840600749391 (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:taf:applec:v:39:y:2007:i:21:p:2769-2784

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RAEC20

DOI: 10.1080/00036840600749391

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Economics is currently edited by Anita Phillips

More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().