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Abstract
We study the effects of delayed nursing home admissions on urgent hospitalisations and costs in the Netherlands. We exploit plausibly exogenous variation in within-region congestion for nursing home admissions. A one-month delay increases urgent hospitalisation by 2.6 percentage points (15% of the baseline), mostly due to falls and primarily driven by individuals with dementia living alone. Cost savings in nursing home care due to delays are partly offset by increased costs in home care and hospitals. These findings suggest that timely access and improved allocation of scarce nursing home capacity can yield health benefits and reduce costs in other parts of the healthcare sector.