Hospital ownership as a factor influencing hospital charges

Abstract

Hospital ownership, whether it is government-non-federal, private-not-for-profit, or private-investor-owned, plays a pivotal role in shaping the landscape of healthcare services in the United States. The choice of ownership structure significantly influences various aspects of hospital operations, including the pricing of services. This paper aims to empirically test if hospital ownership is a crucial determinant of hospital charges in the context of other factors that contribute to hospital charges. This research uses the AHRQ (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) HCUP (Hospital Cot and Utilization Project) NIS (National Inpatient Sample) databases. We use regression analyses on the 12,845 heart failure cases sampled in the NIS 2019 database. Our results show that hospital ownership is a statistically significant influencer of hospital charges, length of stay, and number of diagnoses but not the number of procedures for heart failure cases. The results also reveal the statistical significance of patient demographics and hospital location, which are examined as control variables in our study whose primary focus is on hospital ownership. In-patient care in hospitals has been predominantly examined by clinical factors. Our study shows that non-clinical factors such as hospital ownership have a significant impact on hospital charges even after controlling for patient demographics.