Waiting for Dr. Godot: how much and who responds to predicted health care wait times?

Stephenson Strobel

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: Asymmetric information in healthcare implies that patients could have difficulty trading off non-health and health related information. I document effects on patient demand when predicted wait time is disclosed to patients in an emergency department (ED) system. I use a regression discontinuity where EDs with similar predicted wait times display different online wait times to patients. I use impulse response functions estimated by local projections to demonstrate effects of the higher wait time. I find that an additional thirty minutes of wait time results in 15% fewer waiting patients at urgent cares and 2% fewer waiting patients at EDs within 3 hours of display. I find that the type of patient that stops using emergency care is triaged as having lower acuity and would have used an urgent care. However, I find that at very high wait times there are declines in all acuity patients including sick patients.

Date: 2023-09
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