HCCI research presented at this year’s AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting on emergency room spending was recently featured in a story in USA today.
From the article:
“Hospital emergency rooms are more likely to charge pricier levels of care than a decade ago, generating bigger bills that consumers increasingly must pay with their own money, according to a new report.
The nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) examined insurance claims for a decade’s worth of hospital emergency room bills, analyzing millions of insurance claims for people under the age of 65 who get health insurance through an employer.
HCCI found that hospital emergency rooms not only substantially increased prices for care from 2008 through 2017. The hospitals and doctors also billed for more complex care, which allows them to collect more lucrative fees from consumers, employers and private insurers.”
Hospital billing code changes help explain 176% surge in ER costs
The average emergency room visit cost $1,389 in 2017, up 176%, according to a report by the Health Care Cost Institute. Billing codes are part of it.