Data show dramatic drop in medical service use, lower out-of-pocket spending but rise in prescription drug spending WASHINGTON, May 25, 2022 -- A new report from the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) shows how the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic drastically shifted the ways Americans interacted with the health care system. Even though hundreds of thousands of individuals were hospitalized with the ...

January 10, 2022 08:30 AM Eastern Standard Time  WASHINGTON-- Today, the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) Governing Board announced it had selected Katie Martin as its next President and Chief Executive Officer. Martin is a nationally recognized leader in health policy, with a career-long commitment to public service; she brings evidence and analytics to the most critical health po...

SAN FRANCISCO and WASHINGTON, June 17, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, the COVID-19 Research Consortium, the Health Care Cost Institute, and Datavant announced 15 winners of the first Research Accelerator grants, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The grant program's mission is to ensure that researchers have the resources they need to leverage the COVID-19 Research Database to stu...

The COVID-19 Research Database Consortium announces new funding opportunity for research teams leveraging Real World Data available to inform medical interventions and targeted mitigation policies. [San Francisco, California] May 4, 2021 – Datavant, the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI), and the COVID-19 Research Database Consortium announced the launch of a grant program today, in collaboration w...

New dataset is 25% larger than original HCCI dataset, containing health insurance claims for 55 million people, one third of people with employer-based health insurance in the United States WASHINGTON, DC (February 2, 2021) — The Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) today announced the launch of its new health care claims dataset for research. The new dataset is more than 25% larger than the original...

Policy Proposals Based on Medicare Rates Could Have Dramatically Different Geographic Impacts WASHINGTON D.C. — The average commercial cost of medical professional services compared to the rate Medicare pays is 122% nationally, and ranges from a low of 98% in Alabama to a high of 188% in Wisconsin, according to a new report from the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI). In addition to this cross-stat...

HCCI, Duke, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina release interactive data on state health care spending to inform the public and policymakers. DURHAM, NC – Researchers at The Health Care Cost Institute, Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, Duke University School of Medicine Department of Population Health Sciences, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nort...

It's been a while since my last broad-based update on HCCI's work. With so much going on in the world, I want to bring you up to speed on the many activities underway at HCCI, including our response to the COVID-19 pandemic and our transition to a new dataset that will incorporate claims from Aetna, Humana and Blue Health Intelligence. Everyone's attention is rightfully focused on COVID-19 right n...

Per-Person Health Care Spending Grew 18% from 2014 to 2018, Driven Mostly by Prices After remaining stable for several years, utilization increased slightly in 2018 Access the report here. WASHINGTON D.C. — Average employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) spending rose to $5,892 per person in 2018, according to the Health Care Cost Institute's annual Health Care Cost and Utilization Report, which analyz...

$2 million grant will support HCCI's ongoing work to study drivers of health care spending WASHINGTON (December 23, 2019) — The The Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) today announced a $2 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) that will support a significant expansion of HCCI's commercial claims data. With new data sources, and enabled by this grant, HCCI's commercial claims d...

The Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) was thrilled to make the shortlist for the Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards in the Humanitarian category. Information is Beautiful celebrates excellence and beauty in data visualizations, infographics, interactives, and information art – and the work it features serves as inspiration to HCCI. Over the past year, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson ...

Addition of Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies' data will expand nation's leading resource for understanding health care cost trends.  CHICAGO (November 12, 2019) – The Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) and Blue Health Intelligence® (BHI®) announced today a multi-year data partnership, significantly expanding HCCI's data resources and bolstering its ability to provide research insights to a...

The Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) is proud to present five posters at the AcademyHealth 2019 Annual Research Meeting in Washington, D.C. These posters, which cover HCCI research on a wide variety of topics, focus on health care spending and utilization trends among the commercially insured population. If you are attending the conference, please check out the schedule below to meet our staff an...

Per-Person Health Care Spending Grew 4.2% in 2017, Driven Mostly by Prices Outpatient services had highest spending growth in 2017, increasing 5.1% WASHINGTON (February 12, 2019) — Average annual health care spending for individuals with employer-sponsored insurance increased to an all-time high of $5,641 in 2017, despite little change in the utilization of services overall, according to the Healt...

HCCI's recent report on rising insulin prices was cited in support of congressional  inquiries into drug pricing. This included a letter from U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) to executives at Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi requesting information on insulin pricing.  Additionally, HCCI's research on emergency care was cited in a letter from U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA)&nb...

HCCI will continue to analyze spending trends; Researchers will have HCCI data access until the end of 2022 The Health Care Cost Institute and United Healthcare are sunsetting their data collaboration relationship agreement, that has provided United's deidentified insurance claims data for analyses of U.S. healthcare spending, utilization, and market performance. HCCI continues to receive data fro...

 HCCI's recent report on trends in rising insulin prices received additional media coverage in the last week in outlets including NBC, CBS, CNN, The New York Times, The Hill, U.S. News & World Report, and USA Today.  From CNN: "Congress and the Trump administration continue to push for a drug pricing plan and were given more ammunition Tuesday in the form of a report documenting...

Appointees add leading-edge expertise in health economics and health care strategy entrepreneurship The Health Care Cost Institute is pleased to announce the appointment of two new board members, Amy Finkelstein and Marshall Votta, to further accelerate HCCI's vision and priorities as it enters 2019. "We are thrilled to welcome Amy and Marshall, who are true pioneers in their respective fields. Th...

 HCCI is participating in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's signature research program, Health Data for Action, which makes highly valued health datasets available for innovative research projects. Recently, RWJF announced its Call for Proposals and a Nov. 9th webinar to hear from staff at the Foundation, AcademyHealth, and the data experts to learn more about this Call for Proposals. Heal...

 On Thursday October 11th, at the National Association of Health Data Organizations Annual Conference in Park City Utah, HCCI was announced the winner of NAHDO's nationwide yearly infographic competition. The infographic below is a sneak peak at what is to come when the full HMI report is released later this month.    Download PDF File Here

Valentine's Day is the second-most popular day to pop the question, and millions of couples are expected to get engaged today. According to The Knot's 2017 Jewelry and Engagement Study, the average national cost for an engagement ring in the U.S. is $6,351, just under $1,000 more than average national health care spending per person ($5,407 in 2016). And just like average health care costs, the av...

We've launched a blog to expand the way in which we share findings and insights based on our data with the wider world. While we remain committed to our signature publications such as our annual Health Care Cost and Utilization Report  and our Issue and Data Briefs, sometimes a finding is just too interesting to wait for a more formal publication. We would love feedback from readers on the nu...