- Title
- How Does the Volume of Post-Acute Care Respond to Changes in the Payment Rate?
- First Author
- White, Chapin
- Date of Article
- 2011 Q3
Other Author: Nguyen Nguyen
Volume: 2011
Issue: Q3
Principal Findings: The estimated elasticity of SNF volume with respect to SNF payment rates is 0.13, meaning that an increase in SNF payment rates is associated with an increase in SNF volume and a decrease in payment rates is associated with a decrease in volume "this implies that SNFs exhibit a normal supply curve, consistent with standard economic theory. In an extension of our main analysis, we find that volume changes appear to be driven largely by facility openings and closures. Among facilities that remained open throughout the study period, volume responses were influenced by changes in the number of admissions (rather than length of stay) and changes in payer mix (rather than changes in capacity). We also find that changes in SNF volume primarily reflect net changes in total days of Medicare-covered institutional care, rather than substitution of one setting for another.
Keywords: Medicare, volume response, supply, skilled nursing facility
