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The Evolution of Out‐of‐Hospital Medical Costs to and through Retirement
Author(s) -
Johar Meliyanni
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
economic papers: a journal of applied economics and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.245
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1759-3441
pISSN - 0812-0439
DOI - 10.1111/1759-3441.12156
Subject(s) - pension , medical prescription , medical costs , distribution (mathematics) , service (business) , sample (material) , business , medical expenses , prescription costs , gerontology , demographic economics , medicine , economics , nursing , prescription drug , health care , finance , medical emergency , marketing , economic growth , mathematical analysis , chemistry , mathematics , chromatography
This paper shows how the cost of out‐of‐hospital medical services and prescription drugs change as Australians enter and live through retirement. We use a sample of over 65,000 retired individuals aged forty‐five and over, and extract their Medicare claims for period 2005–2014. Analysing the expenditure distribution for up to eight years after retirement, the result shows that expenditure on medical services continues to increase while pharmaceutical expenditure declines for most retirees. Partially retired individuals have higher medical service cost but lower pharmaceutical cost, while those retiring prior to Age Pension age have slower growth in medical service and pharmaceutical costs.