News
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STAT: Seeing the ‘Deep Pocket’ Effect When Insurers Pay for Health Care
Tags: Prices
Read more: STAT: Seeing the ‘Deep Pocket’ Effect When Insurers Pay for Health CareHCCI’s Guroo tool was cited in a STAT article on direct versus insurance-covered health care service prices. From the article: “I compared prices from this health system’s booklet to the average allowed amounts for the same services reported by the Health Care Cost Institute’s Guroo tool for hospitals in the state of Pennsylvania. For all services…
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AHCJ: Report Shows Wide Variation in What Insurers Pay Providers Versus What Medicare Would Have Paid
Read more: AHCJ: Report Shows Wide Variation in What Insurers Pay Providers Versus What Medicare Would Have PaidHCCI’s research on comparing commercial and Medicare professional service prices was featured in the newsletter of the Association of Health Care Journalists. From the article: “In Comparing Commercial and Medicare Professional Service Prices, HCCI researchers compared what health insurers paid to physicians and other providers with what Medicare pays for those services. This report should not be…
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Health Affairs: The Hospital Industry Is In A Financial Mess: We Have A Unique Opportunity To Fix It
Read more: Health Affairs: The Hospital Industry Is In A Financial Mess: We Have A Unique Opportunity To Fix ItHCCI’s research on hospital market concentration was featured on the Health Affairs blog. From the article: “Economists have long worried about the growth in hospital concentration. A 2019 study by the Health Care Cost Institute showed that the percentage of metro regions with hospital markets defined as highly concentrated based on Department of Justice criteria rose…
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Health Care Cost Institute: Wide Variation in Commercial Prices vs. Medicare Rates Across & Within U.S. States
Tags: HCCI NewsRead more: Health Care Cost Institute: Wide Variation in Commercial Prices vs. Medicare Rates Across & Within U.S. StatesPolicy Proposals Based on Medicare Rates Could Have Dramatically Different Geographic Impacts WASHINGTON D.C. — The average commercial cost of medical professional services compared to the rate Medicare pays is 122% nationally, and ranges from a low of 98% in Alabama to a high of 188% in Wisconsin, according to a new report from the…
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Bloomberg: Covid Stimulus Spending Should Aim to Improve Health-Care Value
Read more: Bloomberg: Covid Stimulus Spending Should Aim to Improve Health-Care ValueHCCI’s research on geographic variation in health insurance spending in the employer-sponsored health insurance population was cited in Bloomberg Opinion. From the article: “A new study from the Health Care Cost Institute in Washington has found a similar dynamic for employer-sponsored insurance: When a beneficiary moves to an area with 10% higher health-care spending, that…
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Health Affairs: COVID-19, Market Consolidation, And Price Growth
Read more: Health Affairs: COVID-19, Market Consolidation, And Price GrowthHCCI’s work on the growth in private health insurance spending was recently cited in an article by Health Affairs. From the article: “The supremacy of price is also supported by the work of the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI), which found that between 2014 and 2018, US private insurer health spending per person increased by 18.4…
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ProPublica: How a $175 COVID-19 Test Led to $2,479 in Charges
Read more: ProPublica: How a $175 COVID-19 Test Led to $2,479 in ChargesHCCI’s President and CEO Niall Brennan was recently quoted in a ProPublica article on extremely high coronavirus test billing rates by out-of-network providers. From the article: “The SignatureCare charges shocked experts who study health care costs. Charging $2,479 for a drive-thru COVID-19 test is a ‘nauseating’ example of profiteering during a pandemic, said Niall Brennan, president and CEO of…
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Carolina Journal: N.C.’s obsolete death reporting system keeps public in a fog
Tags: COVID-19Read more: Carolina Journal: N.C.’s obsolete death reporting system keeps public in a fogHCCI’s research on daily deaths during the coronavirus pandemic was featured in the Carolina Journal. From the article: “Any estimates come from the private sector and from unusual data-gathering methods. One such estimate says the state’s deaths were 13% higher than normal levels on April 23, according to the private nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute,…
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Harvard Medical School: Out-of-Network Care
Tags: Out-of-NetworkRead more: Harvard Medical School: Out-of-Network CareHCCI’s research on out-of-network spending was cited in the Harvard Medical School publication. From the article: “In a study published in the June issue of Health Affairs, the researchers found that while the share of total health care spending that was out of network declined slightly from 2008 to 2016, there was a rapid increase…
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Bloomberg Law: Minnesota Sued Over New Law Providing Free Insulin to the Poor
Tags: InsulinRead more: Bloomberg Law: Minnesota Sued Over New Law Providing Free Insulin to the PoorHCCI’s research on insulin prices was featured in a Bloomberg Law article. From the article: “The inventor who discovered insulin in the 1920s famously sold the patent to the University of Toronto for $1 in the hope that anyone who needed it could afford it.In the years since, the four most common types of insulin have…