TY  - JOUR
AU  - Gibson,Teresa B.
AU  - Fendrick,A. Mark
AU  - Chernew,Michael E.
TI  - Cost-Sharing and Productivity
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 18402
PY  - 2012
Y2  - September 2012
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18402
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18402.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Teresa B. Gibson
Truven Healthcare Analytics, Inc.
777 E. Eisenhower Parkway
Ann Arbor, MI 48108 USA
E-Mail: teresa.gibson@truvenhealth.com

Mark Fendrick
University of Michigan
300 NIB, 7E14
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-0429
E-Mail: amfen@umich.edu

Michael Chernew
Harvard Medical School
Dept. of Health Care Policy
180 Longwood Avenue
Boston, MA  02115
Tel: 617/432-0174
Fax: 617/432-2648
E-Mail: chernew@hcp.med.harvard.edu
AB  - A growing body of literature examines the cross price elasticities between different health care services. For example, increasing the patient out of pocket price for some health care services increases the utilization of other health care services.  Yet, the literature has generally ignored the connection between cost sharing for health care services and labor market outcomes.  This paper examines the direction and magnitude of the reduced form relationship between patient cost-sharing and work loss following methods used to study the impact of cost-sharing and medical spending, finding a positive, quantitatively meaningful association between cost-sharing and hours absent.  We find no such association between cost-sharing and the probability of incurring short-term disability days.  This suggests that the cross-market ramifications of higher patient cost sharing extend beyond other health care services to include broad labor market outcomes.
ER  -