The Effect of Benefit Design on the Length of Stay of Medicaid Psychiatric Patients
研究影响医疗补助精神科患者住院天数的因素，发现提供者会响应保险覆盖和报销限制，且精神科治疗对财务激励反应强烈，表明研究住院天数时必须考虑保险结构。
This paper examines the factors affecting the length of stay of Medicaid psychiatric patients with a model of supply responses to different patient, environmental, and regulatory characteristics. The results indicate that providers respond to limitations in both coverage and reimbursement. Treatment of psychiatric patients is found to respond strongly to financial incentives, suggesting that in any study of the length of stay of psychiatric patients, the structure of their insurance coverage must be considered. This finding makes it difficult to infer medically appropriate patterns of care from observed length-of-stay data.