Title Information
Title
Foisted: The Spillover Effects of Hospital Mergers on Costs and Utilization
Type of Resource (primo)
articles
Abstract
Market power enables firms to restrict quantities and provide services to higher-paying consumers. We study this question using hospital mergers over the 2011 to 2022 period. Consistent with previous work, we find mergers lead to own-hospital reductions in staffing and patient volume, which are driven by decreases in lower-paying public patients. We also find decreases in births, which are heavily paid for by Medicaid. Where do these patients and providers go? We find corresponding increases in public payer volume, staffing, and procedure volume at non-merging neighboring hospitals. In addition, per-procedure discharge costs increase and operating margins decrease at non-merging hospitals. These increases in lower-paying patient populations and operating costs contribute to a nearly 40% increase in the likelihood of non-merging hospital exit. Overall, our collection of findings document how hospital mergers have understudied spillover effects on patient access to care and market stability.
Name
Name Part
Daniel R. Arnold
Role
Role Term (marcrelator) (authorityURI="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators", valueURI="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut")
Author
Name
Name Part
Nandita Radhakrishnan
Role
Role Term (marcrelator) (authorityURI="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators", valueURI="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut")
Author
Name
Name Part
Christopher Whaley
Role
Role Term (marcrelator) (authorityURI="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators", valueURI="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut")
Author
Origin Information
Date Created
2025
Subject (Local)
Topic
access to care
Subject (Local)
Topic
Hospital Mergers
Subject (Local)
Topic
foreclosure
Subject (Local)
Topic
spillover effects of consolidation
Subject (Local)
Topic
safety-net hospitals
Genre
Working Paper
Access Condition: use and reproduction
All rights reserved
Access Condition: rights statement (href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/")
In Copyright
Access Condition: restriction on access
All Rights Reserved
Identifier: DOI
10.26300/em9c-1t33