Annual Reports
HCCI’s Health Care Cost and Utilization Reports

Yearly reviews of spending, price and utilization trends for commercially-insured Americans. Learn more about our methodology, definitions, and other resources.

Dec
20

Trends in STI Screening Utilization

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are infections caused by pathogens spread through sexual contact. STIs can progress from an infection into a sexually transmitted disease (STD). Chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis and HIV are the most commonly screened for STIs in the US. The CDC STD Surveillance Data estimates that there were more than 2.5 million cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis...

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Dec
20

ESI Enrollees Paid $853 on Average Out-of-Pocket for Health Care in 2020, But Some People Paid Over Four Times as Much

High out-of-pocket costs for health care services can put necessary care and medications out of reach for many people. In one survey, nearly half of adults reported difficulty paying for health care services. In this brief, we used HCCI's commercial claims dataset, which includes health care spending information for over one-third of the population who receives health insurance through their job, ...

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Dec
14

Growing Rate of Billed Emergency Department Use in Childbirth Inpatient Admissions

A recent KHN article reported on the growing presence of "obstetric emergency departments" (OBEDs) in U.S. hospitals. Hospitals suggest that OBEDs, which are generally located within labor and delivery departments and often indistinguishable from standard triage rooms, allow pregnant patients with potential emergent conditions (or when they are in labor) to be seen quickly by hospitalists. Pa...

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Nov
30

Measuring the Prevalence of Obesity Using a Distributed Electronic Health Record Network

Obesity is a serious and costly chronic disease that has been increasingly common among the U.S. population. Electronic health record (EHR) data have the potential to support research and patient care interventions. The timeliness and availability of aggregated clinical data can be used in near-real time to monitor obesity prevalence based on body mass index (BMI) at the population-level to guide ...

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Nov
16

Telehealth Use Increased more than 50-fold for Primary Care Visits and Behavioral Health Services in Early Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Telehealth facilitates medical care, allows for the sharing of health information, and offers patient health education through remote communication. In 2020, the onset of the public health emergency prompted many localities to restrict in-person gatherings to prevent transmission of the virus. Health care providers responded by expanding telehealth services in an effort to continue serving their p...

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