Managed Care Provider Volume

Sarah Feldman, David Scharfstein

NBER Working Paper No. 6523
Issued in April 1998
NBER Program(s):   HC

There is considerable evidence that patients that are treated by high volume physicians and hospitals have better health outcomes than patients treated by low volume physicians and hospitals. Thus, as an indirect measure of quality differences between managed care and traditional fee-for-service insurance, we compare the average provider volume of cancer patients covered by these two types of plans. We find that managed care patients tend to be treated by lower volume providers and that the magnitude of the differences varies by the particular cancer and managed care plan.

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Published: The Changing Hospital Industry: Comparing Not-for-Profit and For-Profit Institutions, Cutler, David M., pp. 229-248, (Chicago: The University ogo, 2000).

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