The Medical Care Costs of Mood Disorders: A Coarsened Exact Matching Approach

33 Pages Posted: 14 Feb 2015

See all articles by Stefanie Schurer

Stefanie Schurer

Victoria University of Wellington - School of Economics and Finance

Michael Alspach

Government of New Zealand - Statistics New Zealand

Jayden MacRae

Compass Health

Greg Martin

Victoria University of Wellington - Te Herenga Waka

Abstract

This paper is the first to use the method of coarsened exact matching (CEM) to estimate the impact of mood disorders on medical care costs in order to address the endogeneity of mood disorders. Models are estimated using restricted-use, general practice patient records data from New Zealand for 2009-2012. The CEM model, which exploits a discretization of the data to identify for each patient with a mood disorder a perfect statistical twin, yields estimates of the impact of mood disorders on medical costs that are lower than the estimates obtained from random effects models or conventional matching methods. For example, mood disorders lead to NZ$366 higher annual medical costs (in 2012 dollars) when perfect balancing of covariates is achieved, while minimal and conventional balancing yield estimated costs of over NZ$465 and NZ$400, respectively. The national government expenditures on managing mood disorders is estimated to be 13.4% of total general practice funding (NZ$123 Million) based on CEM.

Keywords: mood disorder, medical care cost, national government expenditures, coarsened exact matching, patient record data, general practice

JEL Classification: H51, I18

Suggested Citation

Schurer, Stefanie and Alspach, Michael and MacRae, Jayden and Martin, Greg, The Medical Care Costs of Mood Disorders: A Coarsened Exact Matching Approach. IZA Discussion Paper No. 8814, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2564947 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2564947

Stefanie Schurer (Contact Author)

Victoria University of Wellington - School of Economics and Finance ( email )

P.O. Box 600
Wellington 6001
New Zealand
+64-4-4636708 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.victoria.ac.nz/sef/staff/stefanie-schurer.aspx

Michael Alspach

Government of New Zealand - Statistics New Zealand

Dollan House, 401 Madras Street
Private Bag 4741
Christchurch, 8140
New Zealand

Jayden MacRae

Compass Health

3322 Broadway
Everett, WA 98201
United States

Greg Martin

Victoria University of Wellington - Te Herenga Waka

P.O. Box 600
Wellington, 6140
New Zealand

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