Publications
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When the Medicare Rate Isn’t the Medicare Rate: Analyzing Differences Between the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and Payments Received by Physicians.
Read more: When the Medicare Rate Isn’t the Medicare Rate: Analyzing Differences Between the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and Payments Received by Physicians.Increasingly, policymakers are considering proposals that tie payments made by private health insurers, in some way, to rates paid by Medicare. These proposals are inspired by the rising cost of health care and widespread variation in health care prices. For example, we recently found that the cost of the same service can vary by 5-fold,…
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Charge Amounts for Professional Procedures to Commercial Insurance and Traditional Medicare
Read more: Charge Amounts for Professional Procedures to Commercial Insurance and Traditional MedicareIn the start of 2019, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finalized federal policies that required hospitals to publish the amount they charge for common services, documents commonly referred to as chargemasters. While similar policies have been in place at the state level since the early 2000s, this was the first federal mandate to require…
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Consumer-Directed Health Plan Enrollment Rises in All Cities over 10 Years (2008 to 2017)
Tags: 10 Year Trend, Commercially Insured, Consumer-Directed Health Plans, Geographic Variation, Out-of-Pocket, Spending
Read more: Consumer-Directed Health Plan Enrollment Rises in All Cities over 10 Years (2008 to 2017)Recent analysis by HCCI finds that enrollment in consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs) increased dramatically since 2008. Nationally, nearly a third of commercially insured individuals were enrolled in a CDHP in 2017, up from 7.5% in 2008. Over ten years, enrollment in CDHPs doubled in 85 of the 88 metro areas studied. High-deductible health plans (HDHPs) have become increasingly common…
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How often do providers bill out of network?
Read more: How often do providers bill out of network?In recent analysis, we document extensive variation across states and metropolitan areas in the frequency of out-of-network visits among individuals with health insurance provided by an employer. These differences raise the question of whether individual providers bill out of network at dissimilar rates. To explore whether a small group of providers are responsible for most…
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Use of Prenatal Care Varies among People with Employer-Sponsored Insurance
Tags: Maternal Health
Read more: Use of Prenatal Care Varies among People with Employer-Sponsored InsurancePrenatal care leads to healthier pregnancy, healthier pregnant people, and healthier babies. In fact, birthing parents who receive prenatal care are three times less likely to deliver low birthweight babies, and the baby is five times more likely to survive delivery. To explore the kind of prenatal care pregnant people receive, we looked at utilization…
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Most Postpartum Spending Occurs Beyond 60 Days After Delivery
Read more: Most Postpartum Spending Occurs Beyond 60 Days After DeliveryThe postpartum period is a vulnerable time for both birthing parent and newborn and is critically important to their health and well-being. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommends ongoing, comprehensive care, including physical, social, and psychological services, during the postpartum period. In large part because of an increasing maternal mortality rate in the US –…
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2018 Health Care Cost and Utilization Report
Read more: 2018 Health Care Cost and Utilization ReportThe 2018 Health Care Cost and Utilization Report presents data on health care spending, utilization, and average prices from 2014 through 2018 for individuals under the age of 65 who receive health insurance coverage through an employer. The report draws on data from more than 2.5 billion medical and prescription drug claims for approximately 40…