Urgent Care Centers and the Demand for Non-Emergent Emergency Department Visits / Lindsay Allen, Janet R. Cummings, Jason Hockenberry.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Allen, Lindsay.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Cummings, Janet R.

Hockenberry, Jason.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w25428.

NBER working paper series no. w25428

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2019.

Summary:

Urgent care centers (UCCs) are a cost-efficient substitute to the emergency department (ED) for non-emergent conditions, but no study has identified their impact on ED demand. We address this gap using a novel strategy that exploits daily UCC operating times in a differencing framework. After UCCs close each day, local non-emergent ED visits increase by 1.43 percent (over the adjusted mean rate of 70.58 percent) in areas with multiple UCCs. This effect occurs only among the privately insured population, the target customers of UCCs. Our results suggest that UCCs are successfully substituting for EDs in the treatment of non-emergent conditions.

Notes:

Print version record

January 2019.