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The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and policy response on health care utilization: Evidence from county-level medical claims and cellphone data.
Cantor, Jonathan; Sood, Neeraj; Bravata, Dena M; Pera, Megan; Whaley, Christopher.
  • Cantor J; RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, USA.
  • Sood N; University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA; National Bureau for Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, USA.
  • Bravata DM; Castlight Health, San Francisco, CA, USA; Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, Stanford, CA, USA.
  • Pera M; Castlight Health, San Francisco, CA, USA.
  • Whaley C; RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, USA. Electronic address: cwhaley@rand.org.
J Health Econ ; 82: 102581, 2022 03.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1620828
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced federal, state, and local policymakers to respond by legislating, enacting, and enforcing social distancing policies. However, the impact of these policies on healthcare utilization in the United States has been largely unexplored. We examine the impact of county-level shelter in place ordinances on healthcare utilization using two unique datasets-employer-sponsored insurance for over 6 million people in the US and cell phone location data. We find that introduction of these policies was associated with reductions in the use of preventive care, elective care, and the number of weekly visits to physician offices, hospitals and other health care-related industries. However, controlling for county-level exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to account for the endogenous nature of policy implementation reduces the impact of these policies. Our results imply that while social distancing policies do lead to reductions in healthcare utilization, much of these reductions would have occurred even in the absence of these policies.
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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Cell Phone / COVID-19 Type of study: Experimental Studies / Observational study Limits: Humans Country/Region as subject: North America Language: English Journal: J Health Econ Journal subject: Hospitals / Health Services Year: 2022 Document Type: Article Affiliation country: J.jhealeco.2022.102581

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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Cell Phone / COVID-19 Type of study: Experimental Studies / Observational study Limits: Humans Country/Region as subject: North America Language: English Journal: J Health Econ Journal subject: Hospitals / Health Services Year: 2022 Document Type: Article Affiliation country: J.jhealeco.2022.102581