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Three Essays On The Efficiency Of Rural Hospitals In The United States, Iustin Cristian Nedelea

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Critical Access Hospital (CAH) Program was created in response to the dramatic deterioration of financial conditions and the potential threat of closure of small rural hospitals under the Prospective Payment System (PPS). CAHs receive cost-based reimbursement for services provided to Medicare patients in exchange for accepting a number of restrictions. The PPS, which pays a fixed price per case, provides an incentive for hospitals to reduce costs and increase efficiency. In the first essay, I examine the impact of conversion to CAH status on hospital efficiency. The estimated results show that CAHs are less cost and allocatively efficient than …