Hospital utilization in mixed public-private system: evidence from Australian hospital data

Abstract

This article investigates whether patients who used a mixture of private and public hospital care have higher total hospital utilization than those who exclusively used either public or private hospital care. Using Australian hospital administrative data of heart disease patients, we found that those who used a mixture of private and public care had the highest total hospital utilization. Our findings are robust to how utilization is measured and endogeneity between utilization and hospital type choice.