Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/324404 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Series/Report no.: 
IFS Working Papers No. 24/21
Publisher: 
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London
Abstract: 
Narrow hospital networks have proliferated in health systems with managed care. We investigate the causal effect of network breadth on mortality leveraging the termination of the largest health insurer in Colombia. The termination caused a substantial increase in mortality accompanied by reductions in network breadth among incumbent insurers. We estimate that broad-network insurers reduce mortality because they steer patients to higher-quality providers and reduce hospital congestion. Results imply that patients should be reassigned to incumbent insurers based on the overlap of their network with the terminated insurer, and that policies requiring minimum network coverage are needed to maintain patient health.
Subjects: 
Mortality
Hospital networks
Health Insurance
Healthcare cost
JEL: 
I10
I11
I13
I18
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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