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 HCCI's research with iFHP on international comparisons of health care prices was cited in an article in The New York Times on COVID-19 test prices.  From the article:  "How can a simple coronavirus test cost $100 in one lab and 2,200 percent more in another? It comes back to a fundamental fact about the American health care system: The government does not regulate health care price...

Per-Person Health Care Spending Grew 18% from 2014 to 2018, Driven Mostly by Prices After remaining stable for several years, utilization increased slightly in 2018 Access the report here. WASHINGTON D.C. — Average employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) spending rose to $5,892 per person in 2018, according to the Health Care Cost Institute's annual Health Care Cost and Utilization Report, which analyz...

% Total Medical Spending % Out-of-Pocket Medical Spending % Medical Charges% Medical  Utilization All Medical Care 11.8 15.6 12.317.2Inpatient Care7.95.68.04.8Outpatient Care13.116.513.717.2 In response to high and growing health care spending, policymakers have proposed improving price transparency as a solution. Several such proposals rely on consumers taking action on publicly av...

HCCI's work with iFHP on international comparisons of health care prices was featured in a New York Times article.   In the U.S., an Angioplasty Costs $32,000. Elsewhere? Maybe $6,400. - The New York Times Enter some description here... https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/upshot/expensive-health-care-world-comparison.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

HCCI's work with iFHP on international comparisons of health care price was featured in a Vox article.   America’s health care costs problem, explained in 4 charts - Vox America’s health care prices problem, in four charts. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/12/17/21024614/us-health-care-costs-medical-prices

The International Federation of Health Plans (iFHP), a CEO network of the global health insurance industry based in London, in partnership with the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) in the United States, and iFHP member companies in eight countries, today published the latest International Comparison of Health Prices Report. The report compares the median prices paid by a sample of private he...

Air ambulances are either fixed wing (airplane) or rotary wing (helicopter) aircraft used to transport people in often time-sensitive medical situations. Air ambulances have become a frequent topic in the news due to their high cost and propensity to lead to surprise bills. Our analysis shows that although air ambulances are not frequently used and their use declined over the 2008 to 2017 period, ...

Spending per person in employer-sponsored plans reaches all-time high of $6,335 Health care spending for the average New Yorker with employer-sponsored health insurance is increasing faster in New York State than the rest of the country, according to a new analysis released today by the New York State Health Foundation (NYSHealth) and the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI). Per-person spending grew...

Where people receive health care matters, especially in terms of costs. The same services may have a much higher price tag when performed in one setting rather than another, but this price difference is rarely publicized to patients. To understand what settings people used and how prices differed, we looked at the utilization and average price paid from 2009 to 2017 for a set of services commonly ...

Watch the Webinar HCCI recently held a webinar to discuss the 2017 Annual Health Care Cost and Utilization Report.    Download PDF File Here

The 2017 Health Care Cost and Utilization Report shows that spending per privately insured person grew by 4.2 percent, the second year in a row of spending growth over four percent. Price increases were the primary driver. The report covers the period 2013 through 2017 and includes claims data from four national insurance companies: Aetna, Humana, Kaiser Permanente, and UnitedH...

 Abstract Background: More than half of all medical procedures performed in the United States occur in an outpatient setting, yet few studies have explored how competition among ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) and hospitals affects prices for commercially insured outpatient services. Objectives: We examined the association between prices for commercially insured outpatient procedu...

ABSTRACT Using a national sample of health care claims data from the Health Care Cost Institute, we found that total spending per capita (not including premiums) on health services for enrollees in employer-sponsored insurance plans increased by 44 percent from 2007 through 2016 (average annual growth of 4.1 percent). Spending increased across all major categories of health services, although the ...

​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

HCCI often reports the prices of health care services, defined as the average amount a provider is paid for a given service based on negotiations with health care insurers. These prices typically represent a portion of charges, which are the amounts health care providers bill for the procedures they perform. The charge amount is often the starting point for negotiations between insurers and provid...

​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...

The 2016 Health Care Cost and Utilization Report shows that spending per privately insured person grew by 4.6 percent, faster than in previous years. Price increases were the primary driver. The report covers the period 2012 through 2016 and includes claims data from four national insurance companies: Aetna, Humana, Kaiser Permanente, and UnitedHealthcare.​  The data in the report can al...

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: 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...

HCCI recently expanded its reporting on emergency room (ER) spending trends to include the most recent data available (2016). We characterize trends in spending, price, and utilization for the five Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes designed to capture the level of severity and complexity of every ER visit. While average prices for all five ER CPT codes were higher in 2016 than in 2009, th...

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...

This issue brief compares trends in health care spending from 2012 to 2016 for adults with employer-sponsored insurance who were diagnosed with hypertension to those not diagnosed with hypertension. It also considers how changes in prescription drug spending compare to changes in prescription drug use for adults with a hypertension diagnosis.   Excel Data Tables Machine-Readable Data   D...

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 ...

ABSTRACT Objectives: There is substantial variation in treatment intensity among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study asks whether policies that target health care utilization for ASD affect children differentially based on this variation. Specifically, we examine the impact of state-level insurance mandates that require commercial insurers to cover certain treatments for ASD f...

 This issue brief explores the distribution of health care spending among commercially insured individuals, with a focus on the top 5 percent of spenders and turnover within that group from year to year. It considers the share of spending incurred by this group of top spenders, how those dollars are distributed among the health care service categories, turnover within the group of top spender...