Will Competitive Bidding Decrease Medicare Prices?

Authors

Brett Katzman, Kennesaw State UniversityFollow
Kerry Anne McGeary, Drexel University

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-2008

Abstract

Recent measures to reduce Medicare spending include the use of competitive bidding in determining reimbursement prices. Several competitive bidding experiments have been conducted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to determine reimbursement prices. This paper investigates the use of competitive bidding to set reimbursement prices for durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies. First, the competitive bidding process is examined on a theoretical level. It is shown that the CMS competitive bidding process (auction) is inefficient, leads to price increases, and may cause decreases in the quality of services. Next, data supporting the theoretical predictions are presented. Finally, we suggest that a descending variant of the Ausubel, Cramton, and Milgrom (2006) clock-proxy auction be used.

Journal Title

Southern Economic Journal

Journal ISSN

0038-4038

Volume

74

Issue

3

First Page

839

Last Page

856