Annual Reports
HCCI’s Health Care Cost and Utilization Reports

Abstract:  We analyze whether receiving care from higher-priced hospitals leads to lower mortality. We overcome selection issues by using an instrumental variable approach which exploits that ambulance companies are quasi-randomly assigned to transport patients and have strong preferences for certain hospitals. Being admitted to a hospital with two standard deviations higher prices raises spe...

ABSTRACT Importance Physician management companies (PMCs), often backed by private equity (PE), are increasingly providing staffing and management services to health care facilities, yet little is known of their influence on prices. Objective To study changes in prices paid to practitioners (anesthesiologists and certified registered nurse anesthetists) before and after an outpatient facility cont...

Valentine's Day – known for romantic candlelit dinners, lavish jewelry, and red roses – is pricey. Indeed, the National Retail Federation's Annual Valentine's Day Spending Survey suggests that an individual spends an average of $175 on these gifts each year. However, data from the Consumer Product Safety Commission shows that the cost of love may be even greater, as more than 300 emergency room vi...

HCCI's 2019 HCCUR and other researcher were featured in an article about spending on employer-sponsored health insurance in Kansas and Missouri. From the article: "A recent study by the Health Care Cost Institute found spending per person with employer health insurance grew more than 20% over five years. That's nearly three times the pace of broader economic inflation." Yes, more and more of ...

Abstract: CBO examined potential reasons that the prices paid by commercial health insurers for hospitals' and physicians' services are higher, rise more quickly, and vary more by area than the prices paid by the Medicare fee-for-service program.