AHIP report highlights rising hospital prices
According to a recent study published in the American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC), researchers from America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) found that from 2008 to 2010 inpatient hospital prices increased by 8.2 percent each year with a wide variation in price levels and growth rates from state to state.
To estimate transaction prices for inpatient hospital stays AHIP researchers used a data set of commercial claims and administrative records for 45 to 50 million commercially insured people under the age of 65.
[See also: AHIP leader: 'Healthcare costs still crushing the country']
According to the report, prices are defined as average allowed charges, including insurer-paid reimbursements plus patient cost sharing obligations, and are shown for 350 specific admission categories and for many states and localities. Intensity adjustments to account for increased complexity or resource use in hospital stays were estimated from changes in the numbers of procedures per admission, the complexity of admission codes and patients' risk scores.
The authors estimated that unadjusted hospital prices per admission rose from $13,016 in 2008 to $15,236 in 2010, an average annual growth rate of 8.2 percent. Taking into account the complexity of treatment and the number of procedures performed, the authors estimated that 1.3 to 1.9 percentage points of this increase could be attributed to increased intensity per admission. Therefore, intensity-adjusted price increases ranged from 6.2 to 6.8 percent annually during this period.
"The price of healthcare services is the major driver of overall healthcare cost growth," said AHIP President and CEO Karen Ignagni in a press release. "To make healthcare coverage more affordable for consumers and employers, there needs to be a much greater focus on the underlying cost of medical care."
The report's authors also noted which common medical procedures saw the highest growth in prices during the period studied. Overall, the price for a spinal fusion increased the most (15.2 percent per year), followed by bronchitis and asthma treatment (10.3 percent per year) and uterine laparoscopic procedure for non-malignancy (9.8 percent per year).
In addition, the authors also found a wide variation in hospital prices across different states and cities. New York hospitals increased their prices the most with prices rising on average more than 20 percent from 2008 to 2010, an annual growth rate of 10.5 percent. Texas (9.3 percent annual growth) and Tennessee (8.8 percent annual growth) also saw higher-than-average increases in hospital prices.
[See also: AHIP offers healthcare reform proposal]
[See also: Hospital pricing policies need to be defensible]
