ABSTRACT: Objective: This study characterizes telehealth claims for mental health and substance abuse (MH/SA) services by using national private claims data. Methods: Telehealth-related mental health service claims were identified with private claims data from 2009 to 2013. These data—provided by the Health Care Cost Institute—included claims from Aetna, Humana, and UnitedHealth fo...
By. Melanie Evans, Yaryna Serkez, and Merrill Sherman More U.S. workers are taking a bigger out-of-pocket hit from their employer-provided health plans. Blame high deductibles. High-deductible plans required patients to spend $2,200 to $4,300, on average, in 2016 before insurance kicked in, and amounts can be significantly more. Employers have embraced high deductibles to cut the amoun...
By: Austin Frakt The Medicare Advantage program was supposed to save taxpayers money by allowing insurers to offer older Americans private alternatives to Medicare. The plans now cover 19 million people, a third of all those who qualify for Medicare. Enrollee satisfaction is generally high, and studies show that plans offer higher quality than traditional Medicare. But the government p...
ABSTRACT: From the inception of the Medicare program there have been questions regarding whether and how to pay for durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies. In 2011 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) implemented a competitive bidding program to reduce spending on durable medical equipment and similar items. Previously, CMS had used prices in an administrat...
This data brief examines geographic variation in health care per capita spending, with a focus on consumer per capita out-of-pocket spending across geographies (2012-2015). It also explores whether the proportion of people enrolled in consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs) and the proportion not utilizing health care services had any influence on out-of-pocket spending. Download PDF File H...
