Dive Brief:
- New research suggests that healthcare prices have continued to rise while patients have cut back on the care they seek. The report, from the Health Care Cost Institute, found that health spending increased 3.9% in 2013 for roughly 40 million people who had employer-based health benefits, but that this represented less care than in prior years.
- The drop in demand for care included a drop in the use of outpatient care. More patients used the ED and had fewer outpatient surgical procedures.
- As for the cost of care, outpatient prices increased 5.8%, as well as other major categories of health spending. Inpatient prices grew 6.7% even as inpatient use declined 2.7%. Spending on professional procedures grew 3.3%, with nearly all the growth due to higher prices rather than higher utilization, researchers concluded.
Dive Insight:
With prices for care rising and inpatient utilization falling, it seems as though supply and demand are out of whack. While the researchers didn't comment on whether the drop in healthcare services utilization lead to negative outcomes for patients, the study did strongly imply that patients were cutting back on care for reasons other than not needing it.
Meanwhile, it's noteworthy that outpatient observation visits increased 4.6% last year, compared with 2.4% and 2.6% growth in the previous two years. With Medicare creating incentives for hospitals to place patients under observation status rather than admit them for short inpatient stays, this is one category in which patients' financial status doesn't affect whether they get more intensive care that they may need.
In all of the other categories discussed above, however, it seems likely that some of the drop in use and utilization isn't good for patients. Health leaders responsible for population health entities like ACOs will need to see if their pricing structure is undermining the health of their patients.