Plausibly Exogenous [1102] - Hospital Care (02/06/2023)
LHS Variable
Hospital stay
RHS Variable
Insurance coverage
Source of Exogenous Variation
Variation induced by the coarseness of hospital reimbursement schedules: hospitals are reimbursed based on the number of days a patient is in the hospital. These days are counted as the number of midnights in care. A newborn delivered at 12:05 am will have nearly a full day in care before being “logged” as present in the hospital, whereas a newborn delivered at 11:55 pm will be counted as present only five minutes after delivery. Coupled with insurance coverage of at least one or two days, those born just after midnight are covered for an additional night of care compared to those born just prior to midnight.
- Almond and Doyle (2011), “After midnight: A regression discontinuity design in length of postpartum hospital stays”