TY  - JOUR
AU  - Garber,Alan M.
AU  - MaCurdy,Thomas E.
TI  - Nursing Home Discharges and Exhaustion of Medicare Benefits
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 3639
PY  - 1991
Y2  - March 1991
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w3639
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w3639.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Alan M. Garber
Provost
Harvard University
Massachusetts Hall
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/496-5100
Fax: 617/495-8550
E-Mail: alan_garber@harvard.edu

Thomas E. MaCurdy
Department of Economics
Stanford University
Stanford, CA  94305-6072
Tel: 650/723-3983
Fax: 650/725-5702
E-Mail: tmac@leland.stanford.edu
AB  - The price sensitivity of demand for nursing home care is a subject of considerable policy interest. Standard methods for measuring price responsiveness are difficult to apply to nursing home care, since accurate price information is usually unavailable and prices may reflect unmeasured quality characteristics. We estimate price sensitivity by exploiting the dynamic price variation implicit in Medicare payment rules for nursing home care. We determine whether the hazard rate for nursing home discharge shifts in response to the price changes that occur when Medicare coverage diminishes or ends. Our findings provide strong evidence that the duration of nursing home admissions is sensitive to price.
ER  -