Nursing Home Admissions Policies under Reimbursement

Abstract

This article examines the impact of reimbursement on admissions by nursing homes. Low rates of payment for Medicaid patients suggest that nursing homes should prefer non-Medicaid patients. Such preferences are observable in daily admissions data from some of a sample of 18 Southern California facilities. Facilities with observable preferences tend to have strong incentives to prefer non-Medicaid patients. The statistical method used to observe preferences may have applications to studies of discrimination in other settings.