Estimating Nursing Home Quality with Selection
47 Pages Posted: 21 Apr 2022
Date Written: March 10, 2022
Abstract
We estimate a Bayesian model of nursing home quality using variational inference. We then conduct three exercises. First, we examine the correlates of quality, finding that public report cards have near-zero correlation. Second, we show that higher quality nursing homes fared better during the pandemic: a one standard deviation increase in quality corresponds to 2.4% fewer Covid-19 cases. Finally, we show that a 10% increase in the Medicaid reimbursement rate raises quality, leading to a 1.85 percentage point increase in 90-day survival. Such a reform would be highly cost-effective even under conservative estimates of the quality-adjusted statistical value of life.
Note:
Funding Information: Olenski gratefully acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
Declaration of Interests: None to declare.
Keywords: snf, nursing homes, covid, medicaid, variational inference
JEL Classification: J11, J18, L15
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation