For privately insured Americans in 2010, rising care prices were the primary driver of healthcare costs, according to the first report from the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI).
The per capita spending on inpatient and outpatient facilities, professional procedures, and prescription drugs rose 3.3% in 2010 for beneficiaries under age 65 with private, employer-sponsored group insurance. This 3.3% increase followed spending increases in 2008 (6.0%) and 2009 (5.8%). In 2010, hospital and ambulatory care facility prices rose by 5.1% and 10.1%, respectively. Decreases in the number of inpatient admissions (–3.3%) and use of outpatient facilities (–3.1%) offset increases in facility prices. Prices for the privately insured in 2010 grew more than utilization after HCCI accounted for changes in the mix of medical services provided in hospitals (0.7%) and outpatient facilities (4.6%).
The Health Care Cost and Utilization Report: 2010 is based on de-identified Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant data contained in 3 billion health insurance claims from Aetna, Humana, and UnitedHealthcare. Therefore, the 2010 report findings reflect the national healthcare spending of more than 33 million privately insured people with employer-sponsored group health insurance.
“For the first time we have comprehensive data on the privately insured. This lets us develop a clearer picture of what is truly driving healthcare spending in the United States,” says HCCI Governing Board Chairman Martin Gaynor, PhD, E.J. Barone Professor of Economics and Health Policy at Carnegie Mellon University.
Per capita spending on healthcare services averaged $4255 in 2010, a 3.3% increase from 2009, according to HCCI. Among age groups per capita expenditures varied, with $8327 paid for people aged 55-64, and $2123 for people under 18 in 2010. Overall health spending among the estimated 156.5 million people with employer-sponsored group insurance increased, rising 2.5% to $666.1 billion.
“We hope this report will help people get a much clearer picture about what triggers healthcare growth and spending,” says HCCI Executive Director David Newman. “Having this amount of data allows us to drill down and examine the underlying causes of healthcare spending among a population that hasn’t been studied extensively in a way that can provide answers to important questions.”
In fall 2012, the 2011 update of the current report will be available, making it one of the earliest available assessments of healthcare spending in 2011.
Source: HCCI.