Per capita spending on healthcare services for people with private, employer-sponsored health insurance who were younger than 65 rose 3.3 percent in 2010, a rate more than double that of inflation according to a new report from the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI).
The study, "Health Care Cost and Utilization Report: 2010," is the first of its kind to use the data from private insurers according to an HCCI press release. The data set comprised de-identified information from more than 3 billion insurance claims from three of the countries largest health insurers: Aetna, Humana and UnitedHealthcare.
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"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, in a press release announcing HCCI's inaugural pricing report.
Spending on healthcare services averaged $4,255 in 2010, but varied widely by age. Beneficiaries aged 55 to 64 paid an average of $8,327 while people under 18 averaged $2,123. Even with the relatively low annual spending among those aged under 18, it was still the fastest growing age cohort in the study.
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In addition to the continued rise in healthcare costs, the HCCI report also found that individuals enrolled in employer-sponsored health plans continue to pick up and increasing share of health costs. Out-of-pocket costs for inpatient visits averaged $700 in 2010 – a rise of 10.7 percent from the previous year. Likewise, patients saw the same 10.7 percent increase for outpatient visits with an average out-of-pocket expense of $162. Outpatient services and professional procedure also increased in 20102 by 7.8 percent and 8.3 percent respectively.
Other findings of the report:
- Prescription Drugs. Prescription drug prices grew 3 percent to $82, on average in 2010, from $80 per prescription in 2009. But the price increase was driven by brand name drugs whose prices increased 13 percent in 2010. Generic drug prices decreased by 6.3 percent in the same period.
- Professional Services. The overall price of professional procedures that include doctor visits, lab tests, and diagnostic imaging, increased 2.6 percent. Payments for office visits - to both primary care and specialist providers - grew by more than 5 percent.
- Utilization Trends. Overall use of healthcare services declined in 2010, dropping by more than 5 percent for medical inpatient admissions, emergency room visits, primary care provider office visits and radiology procedures.
HCCI said it plans to release a number of other reports in the future, including examinations of cost and utilization trends in specific treatment areas and will also make available by researchers who wish to apply, de-identified, HIPAA-compliant data sets to independent researchers.