Economic Data Analysis

RESPOND TO EACH RESPONSE WITH 50 WORDS MINIMUM   R1 The reason why mergers and market consolidation in healthcare have been so prevalent in the last 20years despite prices hardly changing for consumers are due to a variety of factors. Consolidation and mergers offer possible advantages, such as competition elimination and price increases. Hospitals in highly focused markets can charge higher prices for medical services and have greater leverage to negotiate higher prices from healthcare insurance providers. This leads to ever increasing healthcare costs for individuals and families. While the hospitals are benefiting from these mergers and consolidations, consumers have not benefited at all, nor through quality of care or price reductions. Many studies have concluded that these mergers are for the sole purpose of negotiating power with payers and therefore did not lead to true integration.   According to the Dartmouth report, regional variations in the different states mentioned are changes in Medicare spending across hospital referral regions. Death rates in areas where there is less capacity and less utilization are not higher than deaths rates in areas where there is much higher capacity and utilization. Another reason for variation in efficiency is that it is related to practice style as it relates to the way Physicians in the region practice medicine.   R2 The main reason why mergers and market consolidations in the health care sector have become so prevalent over the past two decades is because the advocate believed that they could increase efficiencies and reduce costs in the medical field. In practice, however, mergers and market consolidations result in a monopoly on patients’ service, raising medical costs, and increasing health care management costs through the purchase of new buildings and the increase in hiring of health care workers.   The increase in the use of hospice services by Medicare members with chronic diseases was attended by a decrease in hospital use. The proportion of chronically ill Medicare patients dying in hospitals fell from 24.1% in 2011 to 20.4% in 2018. Among Chronically ill Medicare patients who died in 2018, patients in metropolitan New York City spent about two weeks in a hospital during the last six months, while patients in Utah spent less than five days in a dying hospital. Personally, I think this is because patients in large cities are easy to have an access to hospitals.   References:   Bronner, K., Eliassen. M. S., King, A., Leggett, C., Punjasthitkul, S., & Skinner, J. (2021). The Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care: 2018 Data Update. Dartmouth Atlas Project.     Gale, A. H. (2015). Bigger But Not Better: Hospital Mergers Increase Costs and Do Not Improve Quality. National Library of Medicine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6170097/   R3 Are mergers and acquisitions ever good in healthcare? Can they bring the promised efficiency, cost savings, and improved patient care that is always promised when they are proposed?     Deloitte’s Center for Health Solutions in collaboration with the Healthcare Financial Management Association, (HFMA), seems to think so.   According to HFMA and Deloitte "Hospital mergers and acquisitions When done well, M&A can achieve valuable outcomes" (n.d.),  “In our survey, we also found other positive outcomes associated with mergers and acquisitions in the health care industry, including the ability to make capital investments and achieve cost efficiencies from economies of scale.” (para. 3)