Publications
The latest HMI publications from HCCI

May
01

NBER: The Price Ain't Right? Hospital Prices and Health Spending on the Privately Insured

ABSTRACT: We use insurance claims data covering 28 percent of individuals with employer-sponsored health insurance in the US to study the variation in health spending on the privately insured, examine the structure of insurer-hospital contracts, and analyze the variation in hospital prices across the nation. Health spending per privately insured beneficiary differs by a factor of three across...

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Apr
30

Business Wire: Vitals Reduced Medical Spending for Employers by $56M. Three people every hour shop and save on their health care

 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 ...

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Apr
12

Health Exec: Drug competition didn’t stop sharp increase in MS spending

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...

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Apr
12

The Rising Cost of Specialty Drugs Drove Spending Increases for People with Multiple Sclerosis

This issue brief investigates how the cost of prescription drugs affects the total cost of care for people with multiple sclerosis (MS). It decomposes total health care spending by category, specifically separating out spending on specialty drugs used to treat MS, called Disease Modifying Therapies (DMTs). The issue brief subsequently examines whether changes in spending on DMTs are due to changes...

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Apr
01

American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology: Nationwide trends in the utilization of and payments for hysterectomy in the United States among commercially insured women

ABSTRACT Background: Laparotomy followed by inpatient hospitalization has traditionally been the most common surgical care for hysterectomy. The financial implications of the increased use of laparoscopy and outpatient hysterectomy are unknown. Objectives: The objective of the study was to quantify the increasing use of laparoscopy and outpatient hysterectomy and to describe the financial implicat...

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