State rate regulation and inpatient mortality rates

Most research on hospital rate regulation has focused on costs, but concern about its consequences for quality of care, particularly mortality rates, has also been raised. In this study mortality rates and standardized mortality ratios (SMR) were computed to estimate any effect on quality, using data about Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized during 1986. Regulated states had lower SMRs for both patients and the general population than unregulated states and admitted significantly fewer patients. We found no basis for concluding that rate regulation is adversely related to patient mortality or population mortality, despite lower admission rates.