TY  - JOUR
AU  - Huckfeldt,Peter J.
AU  - Sood,Neeraj
AU  - Escarce,José J
AU  - Grabowski,David C.
AU  - Newhouse,Joseph P.
TI  - Effects of Medicare Payment Reform: 
Evidence from the Home Health Interim and Prospective Payment Systems
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17870
PY  - 2012
Y2  - February 2012
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17870
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17870.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Peter J. Huckfeldt
RAND Corporation
Santa Monica, California
E-Mail: Peter_Huckfeldt@rand.org

Neeraj Sood
Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics
3335 S. Figueroa Street, Unit A
Los Angeles, CA 90089-7273
Tel: 310/393-0411
Fax: 310/260-8156
E-Mail: nsood@healthpolicy.usc.edu

Jose Escarce
UCLA Med-GIM-HSR
911 Broxton Avenue
Box 951736
Los Angeles, CA  90024
Tel: 310/794-3842
Fax: 310/794-0732
E-Mail: jescarce@mednet.ucla.edu

David Grabowski
Harvard University
Department of Health Care Policy
Harvard Medical School
180 Longwood Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
E-Mail: grabowski@med.harvard.edu

Joseph P. Newhouse
Division of Health Policy  Research and Education
Harvard University
180 Longwood Avenue
Boston, MA  02115-5899
Tel: 617/432-1325
Fax: 617/432-3503
E-Mail: newhouse@hcp.med.harvard.edu
AB  - Medicare continues to implement payment reforms that shift reimbursement from fee-for-service towards episode-based payment, affecting average and marginal reimbursement. We contrast the effects of two reforms for home health agencies.  The Home Health Interim Payment System in 1997 lowered both types of reimbursement; our conceptual model predicts a decline in the likelihood of use and costs, both of which we find. The Home Health Prospective Payment System in 2000 raised average but lowered marginal reimbursement with theoretically ambiguous effects; we find a modest increase in use and costs.  We find little substantive effect of either policy on readmissions or mortality.
ER  -