Prospective Payment System Evaluation Studies: Hospital Investment Trends under the Federal Prospective Payment System

摘要

Investment in the hospital industry has had a mixed reception in the last fifty years. After the implementation of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, in contrast, investment was believed to be an important source of hospital expenditure inflation. Prior studies of hospital investment are briefly discussed in Section 1.1. Theoretical considerations and predictions are outlined in Section 1.2. The characteristics of the database employed in the study are described in Section 1.3. The results of the analysis are presented in Chapter 2. Finally, difficulties in interpreting growth rates are discussed in the Appendix.