@article{4e1bfd6a2aba4a779faf9a36c6f9a476,
title = "Check up before you check out: Retail clinics and emergency room use",
abstract = "Given concern about inefficient use of the emergency room (ER) increasing health care costs, we use all ER visits in New Jersey from 2006 to 2014 to examine the impacts of retail clinics on ER use in a difference-in-difference framework. We find that among people residing close to an open retail clinic, the rate of ER use falls by 3.3–13.4% for preventable conditions and 5.7–12.0% for minor acute conditions, while a range of placebo conditions are not affected. Our estimates suggest annual cost savings of nearly $70 million from reduced ER use if retail clinics were readily available across New Jersey.",
keywords = "Emergency room use, Health care access, Preventive care, Retail clinics",
author = "Diane Alexander and Janet Currie and Molly Schnell",
note = "Funding Information: We thank Alex Hollingsworth, Kurt Lavetti, two anonymous referees, and participants in seminars at Princeton University, the University of Chicago, the Hamburg Center for Health Economics, the 2017 Highland Health Economics Symposium, the 2018 Christmas Meeting of German Economists Abroad, and the 2018 and 2019 American Society of Health Economists Annual Meetings for helpful feedback. We also thank the staff at the New Jersey Department of Health for their assistance in accessing the data used in this paper. The Center for Health and Wellbeing at Princeton University provided generous financial support. All views expressed are those of the authors and cannot be attributed to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the Federal Reserve System, or the New Jersey Department of Health. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 Elsevier B.V.",
year = "2019",
month = oct,
doi = "10.1016/j.jpubeco.2019.104050",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "178",
journal = "Journal of Public Economics",
issn = "0047-2727",
publisher = "Elsevier",
}