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In HCCI's most recent Health Care Cost and Utilization Report, we observed substantial growth in spending on vaccines among individuals with employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI), which we attributed largely to uptake of COVID-19 vaccinations in 2021. Although they may be largely responsible for this trend, federal procurement complicates analyses of COVID-19 vaccines using claims data. Resear...

In 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children's Hospital Association, declared a National State of Emergency in Children's Mental Health associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, including the loss of caregivers, school closures, social isolation, and gaps in health care (see citations below). Understanding the effect of the COV...

It is no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic upended the U.S. health care system in 2020, with effects still being felt in 2022. HCCI previously published a brief that showed precipitous drops in the utilization of several preventive health care services in early 2020. Several news outlets have also covered the effect of the pandemic on routine services, including childhood vaccination rat...

Each year, HCCI publishes an annual update to the Healthy Marketplace Index (HMI), an interactive tool that describes how health care prices, use, and spending vary across metropolitan areas. HMI helps us to understand how these aspects of the health care system compare and contrast to the median metropolitan area. We recently released the latest version of the HMI, which provides data from 2020, ...

The COVID-19 pandemic shaped health care spending and use over the past two years in numerous ways. We recently released our Health Care Cost and Utilization Report which provides data from the first year of the pandemic on health care use, spending, and prices across different types of services for approximately 55 million individuals enrolled in employer-sponsored health insurance. In the report...

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted Americans in a myriad of ways, including their use of the health care system for both COVID- and non-COVID related services. In this brief, we explore the ways in which the first year of the pandemic affected people for one of the most common hospital services – childbirth. In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, more than 3.6 million babies were born in the Uni...

COVID-19 testing has become a regular part of life for many Americans over the last two years. In addition to facilitating individual returns to work, school, and other activities, testing is a crucial component of the public health strategy to monitor and address the spread of the virus. Even as testing becomes more available, there is widespread concern and frustration about the high and variabl...

 HCCI's President and CEO Niall Brennan was featured in a Consumer Reports article on the price of coronavirus testing.  From the article: "Outside analysts say that it is hard to name a standard fair price for a COVID-19 test when factoring in rent, staff, insurance, utilities, and other operational expenses. It is 'difficult to answer because people will claim to have lots of sunk cost...

HCCI's President and CEO Niall Brennan was quoted in an NPR report on a shockingly high bill for a COVID-19 test. From the article: ' "People are going to charge what they think they can get away with," says Niall Brennan, president and CEO of the Health Care Cost Institute, a nonprofit that studies health care prices. "Even a perfectly well-intentioned provision like this can be hijacke...

HCCI's research on insulin prices was featured in a USA Today article on COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.  From the article: "Insulin prices nearly doubled in the U.S from 2012 to 2016, a 2019 report by the nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute found." Fact check: False claim links COVID-19 vaccine's price, effectiveness Even though almost all COVID-19 deaths are occurring among unvaccinated p...

SAN FRANCISCO and WASHINGTON, June 17, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, the COVID-19 Research Consortium, the Health Care Cost Institute, and Datavant announced 15 winners of the first Research Accelerator grants, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The grant program's mission is to ensure that researchers have the resources they need to leverage the COVID-19 Research Database to stu...

The COVID-19 Research Database Consortium announces new funding opportunity for research teams leveraging Real World Data available to inform medical interventions and targeted mitigation policies. [San Francisco, California] May 4, 2021 – Datavant, the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI), and the COVID-19 Research Database Consortium announced the launch of a grant program today, in collaboration w...

Updated 4/16/2021 to include data through 12/30/2020. Since the original post on 9/9/2020, the data have been adjusted to account for claims submission lags. For more information, see Methods Note below. COVID-19 has had an extraordinary impact on the US health care system since its emergence in early 2020. One of the largest and most immediate impacts has been the death toll, with ...

The staggering death toll of the novel coronavirus pandemic in the United States has been widely reported, surpassing 523,000 as of March 8, 2021. Over the course of the current pandemic a common method for measuring the probable number of deaths caused by COVID-19 has been comparing actual deaths in 2020 to the expected number of deaths in 2020 based on deaths in previous years. To add to the gro...

HCCI's President and CEO Niall Brennan was quoted in a USA Today article on failures of the federal COVID-19 vaccination system. From the article: "'They literally thought their job stopped with vaccine development,' said Niall Brennan, CEO of the Health Care Cost Institute and former chief data officer for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. 'No, your job stops when the...

As the production and distribution of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines ramps up in the United States, there is a need to ensure that communities at highest risk for severe COVID-19 morbidity and mortality are targeted. As of February 2021, the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines, which were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) in late 2020, remai...

Community Health Centers (CHCs) serve over 29 million vulnerable patients, making the lack of data on COVID-19-related racial disparities in patients served in CHCs a critical knowledge gap in assessments of the pandemic's national impact. In rural and poor urban areas, CHCs may be the only accessible healthcare option. Even when other options exist, CHCs reduce barriers such as cost, lack of insu...

HCCI's research on utilization of preventive care services during the coronavirus pandemic was featured in Modern Healthcare.  From the article: "A Health Care Cost Institute analysis of data from various payers found mammograms were down 24% and colonoscopies were down 33% as of August." Targeting high-risk cancer patients with genetics As cancer screening rates have dwindled amid the COVID-...

HCCI's research on prices for COVID tests and other panel testing was featured in The New York Times.  From the article: "Insurers typically reimburse the panel test at a higher rate, often paying six times what they would for a regular coronavirus test, according to data provided by the nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute." These Towns Trusted a Doctor to Set Up Cov...

HCCI's research on the utilization of preventive health care during the coronavirus pandemic was featured in an issue brief by KFF.  From the article: "An analysis of data from 18 states that was published by the Health Care Cost Institute found similar patterns for childhood vaccinations and cancer screenings." Trends in Overall and Non-COVID-19 Hospital Admissions – Issue Brief – 9560 | KFF...

HCCI's research in conjunction with the Berkeley Research Group on years of life lost during the coronavirus pandemic was featured in Modern Healthcare. From the article: "About 1.9 million years of life have been lost from April to August, which is a 13% increase over the historical average, according to a Health Care Cost Institute analysis that compared obituary and life exp...

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a growing body of research has found alarming disparities in rates of the virus among Black and Hispanic communities. For example, the CDC reports that "American Indian or Alaska Native, Non-Hispanic" people and "Hispanic or Latino" people each have 2.8 times as many COVID cases than white people, Black patients have 2.6 time as many, and Asian people have...

Summary: Since April, 1.9 million excess years of life have been lost, 13% above historical average. Over the course of the pandemic, we found age and sex contributions to excess YLL have shifted. Deaths among adults 65 and older accounted for 80% of excess YLL in April but only 36% of excess YLL in June. Since April, working age adults 20-64 have accounted for 47% of excess YLL, and males 20...

HCCI's research on the impact on COVID-19 on preventative care services was featured in Modern Healthcare.  From the article: "And preventive care hasn't fully recovered.  Mammograms and Pap smears were down nearly 80% in April and nearly 25% in June, according to an analysis of claims data from the Health Care Cost Institute published earlier this month." Inpatient volumes, surgeri...

HCCI's research on non-urgent medical care during the coronavirus pandemic was featured in The New York Times.   From the article:  "Vaccinations dropped by nearly 60 percent in April, and almost no one was getting a colonoscopy, according to new data from the nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute. The data, drawn from millions of health insurance claims, shows a consistent patt...