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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

HCCI's 2016 Annual Report was cited in the WSJ: The HCCI findings are "pretty compelling," said Paul Ginsburg, a professor at the University of Southern California. "Higher prices from providers is the most important element in rising premiums in the past few years."  Employer-Provided Health Insurance Approaches $20,000 a Year - WSJ The average cost of health coverage offered by employers ro...

​HCCI data was featured in The Wall Street Journal showing that insurers pay higher prices for some services performed on an outpatient basis that could also be performed in doctors offices. Read the Article

Behind Your Rising Health-Care Bills: Secret Hospital Deals That Squelch Competition - WSJ Hidden provisions in contracts between health-care providers and insurers allow hospitals to hide prices from consumers, add fees and discourage use of less-expensive rivals. https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-your-rising-health-care-bills-secret-hospital-deals-that-squelch-competition-1537281963?mod=hp_lea...

​Research using HCCI data shows the different prices patients face for the same procedures performed in the same hospitals. "a new paper from economists Zack Cooper, Stuart Craig, Martin Gaynor, and John Van Reenen sheds light on another fascinating type of variation: price differences within a single hospital. Their research is the first I've seen that shows insurers pay different prices for...

HCCI's emergency room analysis has been highlighted by Politico! "Emergency room spending essentially doubled between 2009 and 2016, even though the number of patients treated remained flat, according to an analysis of insurer claims data recently published by the Health Care Cost Institute. The growth is being driven entirely by the most expensive claims. Costs stemming from the two most expensiv...

By: Niall Brennan Health care spending is exceedingly difficult to control for our nation, the states, and private payers, but also for individual patients and providers. While there has been some moderation in spending in recent years in programs like Medicare, the health share of gross domestic product (GDP) is projected to continue to rise from 17.9 percent in 2016 to 19.7 percent in 2026 (see ...

By: John Commins  A review of emergency department claims for employer-sponsored plans from 2009 through 2016 found that the average prices for higher severity billing codes rose faster than lower severity codes. Emergency department spending per employer-sponsored plan enrollee increased 99% from 2009 to 2016, even as overall ED use for that cohort flat-lined, the Health Care Cost Institute ...

By: Kelly Gooch Among the commercially insured, national emergency room use remained unchanged from 2009 to 2016, but ER price hikes and greater use of high-severity codes resulted in more ER spending, according to updated data from the Health Care Cost Institute. The data on ER spending, price and utilization reflects five facility fee current procedural terminology codes, which indicate the...

 By: Shelby Livingston Even though emergency department use has stayed the same, ED spending per member nearly doubled from 2009 to 2016 as the severity of ED visits and the prices associated with those visits increased, new data from the Health Care Cost Institute shows. The not-for-profit HCCI analyzed employer-sponsored insurance claims for the five procedure codes used to bill for ED...

 By Thomas Beaton Employer-sponsored health plans that include high cost sharing expectations can help control spending for plan sponsors, but could create longer-term health risks for employee beneficiaries. Striking the right balance between lowering costs and enabling healthy decision-making can be a challenge for employers and payers looking to design cost-effective plans. How can plan sp...

By: Kelly Gooch  A newly revised study reveals insights into monopoly pricing, finding hospital market structure is strongly linked with pricing and insurer contract structure. For the study, researchers primarily examined private insurance claims data from Aetna, Humana and UnitedHealth. The data, provided by the Health Care Cost Institute, covers healthcare received by 28 percent of America...

 By: Sarah Kliff On October 19, 2016, Jessica Pell fainted and hit her head on a nearby table, cutting her ear. She went to the emergency room at Hoboken University Medical Center, where she was given an ice pack. She received no other treatment. She never received any diagnosis. But a bill arrived in the mail for $5,751. "It's for the ice pack and the bandage," Pell said of the fee. "That is...

 Vitals today released its 2018 Book of Business report. The annual summary reports the metrics associated with shopping activity and savings achieved by employers and employees using Vitals SmartShopper. SmartShopper is a high-tech, high-touch health care program that allows consumers to shop for and choose better-value medical care. Over the past four years, SmartShopper has generated over ...

By: John Gregory  Between 2009 and 2015, spending on patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) greatly increased, with disease modifying therapies (DMTs) accounting for 82 percent of that increase as prices jumped every year and use slightly declined. The report from the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) examined claims for people with MS from 2009 to 2015 covered by individual market, employer-s...

On February 28, 2018, HCCI, among other key stakeholders, was asked to provide feedback to several questions posed by six U.S. Senators on the issue of health care price transparency. The Senators are launching a bipartisan effort to increase health care price and information transparency to empower patients, improve the quality of health care, and lower health care costs. Feedback was due March 2...

 By: Tami Luhby Sylvia Rosas decided to go to the emergency room after getting stung by a bee in her yard in Valrico, Florida. She had experienced allergic reactions in the past, but didn't have an EpiPen on hand. However, what really hurt was the $12,000 bill she received for the visit to the ER. The 53-year-old said she was seen by several doctors, who ordered thousands of dollars in b...

By: Christopher Koller and Margaret O'Kane The Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) released its analysis of 2016 health spending for a group of commercial insurers last month. The report is a trove of information that, like all good analyses, suggests more questions than it answers. Buried in the report—in figure 15—is an alarming trend that should rise to the top of analysts' areas for further inve...

 By: Elizabeth Fite Hypertension, or high blood pressure, affects the health and wallets of more than 75 million U.S. adults, and the cost of managing this condition is growing, according to a new study from the Health Care Cost Institute. The study released Tuesday analyzed data from employer-sponsored health insurance claims of adults between the ages of 18 and 65 and found that adults...

Laurie Cook went shopping recently for a mammogram near her home in New Hampshire. Using an online tool provided through her insurer, she plugged in her ZIP code. Up popped facilities in her network, each with an incentive amount she would be paid if she chose it. Paid? To get a test? It's part of a strategy to rein in health care spending by steering patients to the most cost-effective providers ...

Baby boomers are living longer, getting their aching hips and knees replaced as they age. That puts Illinois Bone & Joint Institute in the sweet spot of medicine. Hip and knee replacements are among the most common surgeries in the U.S.—and they're pricey. Everything involved in replacing one, from surgery to the weeks of rehab that follow, costs an average $36,000, according to Guroo, a site ...

 By Thomas Beaton February 23, 2018 - The growth of the Medicare Advantage (MA) market requires the release of more claims data to evaluate the commercial and government impact of the program, according to a recent JAMA commentary from the Health Care Cost Institute, ProPublica, and the VA. "Despite the important and increasing role of Medicare Advantage plans, there is fairly little insight ...

Healthcare organizations that faced Medicare reimbursement reductions under the Affordable Care Act engaged in hospital cost-shifting that resulted in 1.6 percent higher average payments from private payers, a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research uncovered. Researchers reported that hospitals penalized under the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program (HRRP) and the Hospi...