The Eect of Health Care Entrepreneurship on Local Health: The Case of MedExpress in Appalachia

We test the hypothesis that the opening of an Urgent Care Center (UCC) has positive impacts on the local community. There are several mechanisms through which a UCC can impact the community, for instance, lower costs of health care, decongestion of emergency rooms, and improved access to health care. We examine the entry of MedExpress into Appalachian counties between 2001 and 2013 using data from the Area Health Resources Files and propensity score matching to create a control group similar to the counties which received a MedExpress UCC. We then employ a dierence-in-dierence model on an unbalanced panel between 2001 and 2013. Our results suggest MedExpress entry has a positive impact on dierent health outcome variables.