While delivering babies normally, it is noted that there is usually no equality for patients’ payments. This disparity arises due to the type of insurance cover they use to pay for this service. The hospital understands this and so a proposal for a new policy that will enable equality since the service is similar. As a hospital administrator the nurses have expressed their concern for equitable patient care. Accordingly, I have to determine whether the type of insurance coverage influences the patient’s overall and daily charges. This study will give results that will help me determine whether it is better or not to adapt the policy or not. This decision will be made on the basis of the revenue generated whether the hospital will be at a loss or not.
Statistical analysis
This analysis will help us in determining the daily total and average payments for all normal delivery patients. The results will enable us compare with the mean and total payments for the two groups of patients based on the insurance cover in the technical report. The ample size was 289 patients who have normal delivery in a hospital representing all the patients who deliver normally in that hospital in a year.
1. The proportion of with managed care insurance
96 patients out 289 patients had the managed care type of insurances covers. This is equivalent to:
96/289=0.3322*100=33.22%
2. The average time spent in the hospital for a normal delivery
The total number of days for all patients are=638
For 289 patients=638/289=2.2076
3. The mean charges for a normal delivery
For 289 patients the total payments are=833,904
The mean is=833,094/289=2882.6782
4. The mean daily charges for a normal delivery
The mean charges for a delivery are=2882.6782 and the mean number of days are=2.2076
The mean daily charges are=2882.6782/2.2076=1305.7973
The results for this analysis indicate that the daily pay for a normal delivery is 1305 and normally patients take more than one day to deliver. The technical report below will compare the figures with each group of patients.
Technical report
Descriptive statistics table
This will include an independent paired t-test to determine whether the two groups of patients differ in their total and mean payments. The control group is the patients who pay under other types of insurance (1) while the managed care (0) patients will be the variable group.
Hypothesis tests
a. On average do the total charges for these two groups differ
Null hypothesis: “the total charges for these two groups do not differ”
Alternate hypothesis: “the total charges for these two groups differ”
The T-test formula= signal/noise=
Managed care group=257,571
Other insurance cover=575,523
At 0.5 level of significance the t test result is =0.78
For this test imply that we accept the null. This is because the resulting value is equal to a value between 0.5 and 1. This means that the null is true. The group totals do not differ for the two groups of insurance covers.
b. On average do the mean charges for these two groups differ?
Null: the mean charges for these groups do not differ
Alternative: the mean charges for the two groups differ
Group means= managed cover insurance=1327.6856
Insurance type cover=1296.2230
The t-test result at 0.5 degree of significance is = 0.76
The resulting figure implies that the null should be accepted and so then it is true that the mean charges for the two groups do not differ. This is because the result figure is between 0.5 and 1 which indicates the null is true.
Implication if the hospital implements the proposed policy
If the hospital implements the equal care policy the result will be that it stands to benefit from a high influx of patients. This is because the patient number is expected to rise since the patients paying through types of insurance covers will increase as well as those paying through managed care. The resulting implication will be that the group with the managed care will pay less for the normal delivery procedure. This will lead to the hospital also getting an influx of these patients since they will be paying less than before. However this will still be below the mean required payments and so the hospital stands to retain its profits. The limitation of the analysis is that the results prefer a policy change yet it will affect other delivery patients not only for normal deliveries.
