Hospital Response Variation to the Demands of Preadmission Certification

Abstract

This paper reports findings from a study of the impact of preadmission certification programs from the perspective of the hospital—a deeply affected party. A series of field studies was undertaken to explore and delineate the range of hospital responses to the challenges posed by this third-party payer man date and to identify factors associated with variation in responses. The evidence presented suggests wide variation in how hospitals chose to share responsibil ity for pre-certification with physicians and patients. The findings are broadly consistent with a proposed model that hospital response is determined by both external and internal considerations, but a larger scale hospital survey is necessary to test the hy potheses that can be derived from this study.

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