2024/11/28 by David A Rosenkranz, Lindsay White, Chuxuan Sun +2 · 1 voice
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Healthcare Policy and Management #Insurance and Financial Risk Management #Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/haschl/qxae160
openalex publication_date 2024/11/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
How do referral networks and medical conditions determine where patients get care? We study this question in the US Hospice Industry, where for-profit hospice programs enroll more long-term care patients and more patients with Alzheimer's disease and related dementia. We find that for-profit hospice enrollees have 23% longer lifetime lengths-of-stay in hospice care than not for-profit hospice enrollees with the same medical conditions, institutional referral source, county of residence, and enrollment year. This and other differences in their end-of-life health care utilization suggest that hospice market segmentation is the result of a patient-specific selection mechanism that is partially independent of institutional barriers to hospice care.