For many Americans, emergency departments are the only source of health care outside of business hours. This can result in overcrowding at emergency departments, decreased quality of care, and gaps in care over the weekends. Weekend office closures can delay physician visits for up to two days. I identify the health consequences of treatment delays by looking for variation in preventable complications from infection over days of the week. I find that conditional on being admitted to a hospital for antibiotic treatable infections including urinary tract infections, staph infections, and bacterial meningitis, those admitted in the early week (Monday-Tuesday) suffer worse health outcomes. This suggests that delaying treatment for common treatable illnesses for just two days results in significant negative health consequences.
The number of licensed Nurse Practitioners more than doubled between 2010 and 2017 leading to nearly as many NPs graduating each year as physicians. At first glance, these numbers suggest an end to the physician shortage in the US. However, critics argue that increasing the number of registered NPs depletes the pool of registered nurses, and NPs may provider lower quality of care when compared to physicians. I measure the impact of the growing number of NPs on population health and health care labor market outcomes in areas with both broad and limited scope of practice. To do this, I use the establishment of new NP education programs to instrument for increases in the NP labor supply.
I investigate the barriers to prescription adherence for prescription oral contraceptives. I find that fifteen percent of women prescribed daily oral contraceptives experience a gap in prescription coverage of between one and three months in a given year. These coverage gaps are associated with a 1 percentage point (25 percent) increase in the probability of experiencing a pregnancy in the following eight months. The likelihood of experiencing a coverage gap increased significantly in early 2021, potentially due to barriers to physician access during the COVID19 pandemic. I do not find an effect of abortion bans on prescription adherence.
In response to the severe economic shock induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress passed the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Using data on savings, income, and expenses from the Survey of Consumer Finances, we show that cash assistance included in the CARES Act allows almost all families to cover their normal, recurring expenses in the event of long-term unemployment. In the absence of government support, nearly half of families who lose their income for six months would not be able to cover their expenses due to low levels of liquid saving and standard unemployment insurance benefits that do not fully replace income.
In response to the severe economic shock induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress passed the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Using data on savings, income, and expenses from the Survey of Consumer Finances, we show that cash assistance included in the CARES Act allows almost all families to cover their normal, recurring expenses in the event of long-term unemployment. In the absence of government support, nearly half of families who lose their income for six months would not be able to cover their expenses due to low levels of liquid saving and standard unemployment insurance benefits that do not fully replace income.