Is more information better?
Subtitle: the effects of 'report cards' on health care providers
By: David Dranove ... [et al.].
Contributors: Dranove, David.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series ;; working paper  8697; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;; working paper no.  8697.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Description: "Health care report cards - public disclosure of patient health outcomes at the level of the individual physician and/or hospital - may address important informational asymmetries in markets for health care, but they may also give doctors and hospitals incentives to decline to treat more difficult, severely ill patients.  Whether report cards are good for patients and for society depends on whether their financial and health benefits outweigh their costs in terms of the quantity, quality, and appropriateness of medical treatment that they induce.  Using national data on Medicare patients at risk for cardiac surgery, we find that cardiac surgery report cards in New York and Pennsylvania led both to selection behavior by providers and to improved matching of patients with hospitals.  On net, this led to higher levels of resource use and to worse health outcomes, particularly for sicker patients.  We conclude that, at least in the short run, these report cards decreased patient and social welfare"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Also available in print.
Includes bibliographical references.
Title from PDF file as viewed on 3/2/2005.
System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.