@techreport{NBERw10677,
 title = "Detecting Medicare Abuse",
 author = "David Becker and Daniel Kessler and Mark McClellan",
 institution = "National Bureau of Economic Research",
 type = "Working Paper",
 series = "Working Paper Series",
 number = "10677",
 year = "2004",
 month = "August",
 URL = "http://www.nber.org/papers/w10677",
 abstract = {This paper identifies which types of patients and hospitals have abusive Medicare billings that are responsive to law enforcement. For a 20 percent random sample of elderly Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized from 1994-98 with one or more of six illnesses that are prone to abuse, we obtain longitudinal claims data linked with Social Security death records, hospital characteristics, and state/year-level anti-fraud enforcement efforts. We show that increased enforcement leads certain types of types of patients and hospitals to have lower billings, without adverse consequences for patients' health outcomes.},
}