| Continuous growth of Emergency Department (ED) visits in the US has raised many concerns. Several studies have been devoted to determine the causes of ED use growth but few of them have examined impacts of public policies on ED visits. This dissertation includes three essays that investigate causes of increase in ED visits and examine the effect of some public policies on ED use. Specifically, essay 1 investigates the effect on ED use of the Massachusetts Healthcare Reform. Essay 2 examines the association of ED visits in a state with the share of the population with different types of insurance coverage, economic factors, and measures of the medical system. Finally, essay 3 determines the characteristics of New York State Medicaid recipients who visited EDs during 2010 and investigates the association of primary care visits and ED use.;Keywords: Emergency Department (ED), ED crowding, Healthcare Insurance, Massachusetts Healthcare reform, Medicaid. |
