The Medical Treatment of Depression, 1991-1996: Productive Inefficiency, Expected Outcome Variations, and Price Indexes

Ernst R. Berndt, Anupa Bir, Susan H. Busch, Richard G. Frank and Sharon-Lise T. Normand

No 7816, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We examine the price of treating episodes of acute phase major depression over the 1991-1996 time period. We combine data from a large retrospective medical claims data base (MarketScanTM, from the MedStat Group) with clinical literature and expert clinical opinion elicited from a two-state Delphi procedure. This enables us to construct a variety of treatment price indexes that include variations over time in the proportion of off-frontier' production, as well as the corresponding variations in expected treatment outcomes. We also incorporate the fact that the no treatment option ( waiting list') frequently results in spontaneous remission of depressive symptoms. We find that in general the incremental cost of successfully treating an episode of acute phase major depression has generally fallen over the 1991-96 time period. Based on hedonic regression equations that account for the effects of changing patient mix, we find price reductions that range from about -1.66% to -2.13% per year. An implication of this is that, since expenditures on depression are thought to be increasing since at least 1991, the source of the spending increases is volume (quantity) increases, and not price increases.

JEL-codes: I11 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-his
Note: EH PR
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published as Berndt, Ernst R., Anupa Bir, Susan H. Busch, Richard G. Frank and Sharon-Lise T. Normand. "The Medical Treatment Of Depression, 1991-1996: Productive Inefficiency, Expected Outcome Variations, And Price Indexes," Journal of Health Economics, 2002, v21(3,May), 373-396.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w7816.pdf (application/pdf)

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:nbr:nberwo:7816

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w7816

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().