TY - JOUR
T1 - Identifying the relationship between length of hospital stay and the probability of readmission
AU - Makowsky, Michael D
AU - Klein, Eili Y.
PY - 2017/5/8
Y1 - 2017/5/8
N2 - We estimate the effect of hospital length of stay (LOS) on the probability of 30-day readmission for 516,768 patients hospitalized with heart failure in California from 2005 to 2011. We use hospital crowding as an instrumental variable to control for bias from omitted health characteristics. Our results suggest that the literature, which has for 30 years identified readmission rates increasing with LOS, has not controlled for omitted variable bias when estimating the benefits from a patient’s hospital stay.
AB - We estimate the effect of hospital length of stay (LOS) on the probability of 30-day readmission for 516,768 patients hospitalized with heart failure in California from 2005 to 2011. We use hospital crowding as an instrumental variable to control for bias from omitted health characteristics. Our results suggest that the literature, which has for 30 years identified readmission rates increasing with LOS, has not controlled for omitted variable bias when estimating the benefits from a patient’s hospital stay.
KW - Length of hospital stay
KW - Prospective Payment System
KW - readmission
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85019166481&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1080/13504851.2017.1324605
DO - 10.1080/13504851.2017.1324605
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85019166481
SN - 1350-4851
SP - 1
EP - 6
JO - Applied Economics Letters
JF - Applied Economics Letters
ER -