Certificate of Need and Low Capital-Cost Medical Technology

Recently, policy makers have become concerned that some technologies whose capital costs fall below $150,000 may contribute more heavily to hospital cost inflation than their higher capital-cost counterparts. One proposed public policy response is to extend Certificate of Need regulation to these presently nonregulated technologies. Electronic fetal monitoring is used here to explore the economic and noneconomic issues in regulating adoption of technology, and to examine alternative strategies, including economic incentives to hospitals and technology manufacturers.

Author(s): Alan B. Cohen; Donald R. Cohodes

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Volume 60, Issue 2 (pages 307–328)
Published in 1982