Living alone and provider behaviour in public and private hospitals

Abstract

Following COVID-19, hospitals in many OECD countries are under pressure to absorb backlogs accumulated due to the suspension of health services. Reductions in length of stay can generate capacity to treat patients and increase efficiency. Personal circumstances, such as living alone, can affect how long patients stay in hospital. We test whether such non-clinical factors affect care received by patients. Several countries are experiencing an increase in the number of elderly people who live alone. Patients who live alone may lack support at home leading to delayed discharges despite being clinically fit. We test whether living alone affects length of stay of publicly-funded patients treated by public and private hospitals requiring hip replacement, a common planned surgery, in England. Private providers have stronger incentives to contain costs, which could reduce the extent to which non-clinical factors such as living alone are taken into account when providers discharge patients. Using administrative data and controlling for a rich set of patient characteristics, and hospital and local supply factors, we provide evidence that living alone increases length of stay. The effect is substantive and larger for public hospitals and older patients. It is similar for patients living in urban and rural areas, and across socioeconomic status. More broadly, the study shows that non-clinical factors can affect the care received by patients.