The Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) is a non-profit, independent, non-partisan
research institute dedicated to creating the United States’ most comprehensive
source of information on health care activity and promoting research on the
drivers of escalating health care costs and utilization.
In the last decade, health care costs rose three times faster than wages, squeezing family budgets and
imposing a burden on many employers. Currently, federal and state governments face long-term fiscal
challenges contributed in part by the growing costs of public programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
Official estimates project that health spending will increase by 80% between 2010 and 2020.
Although nearly 20% of American economic activity comes from the health care sector, the drivers of health
care spending are widely debated and poorly understood. For instance:
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Is the rise in health care expenditures due to utilization of specific medical and professional services?
Would shifting more costs of care to the insured lead the public to better understand the true cost of
medical services?
Are Americans growing sicker and demanding a greater intensity of medical services?
Are costs rising faster than consumer prices due to the pricing of health care and prescription drugs?
HCCI believes better information, deeper analysis, and heightened public awareness can help slow spending
growth while increasing the value of health services. Established in September 2011 and led by an
independent governing board comprised of academics, researchers, and health care leaders, HCCI produces
and supports innovative research on the drivers of health care spending.
Currently, HCCI holds data on privately insured health care activity between 2001 and the present. The first
insurers to contribute data to HCCI were Aetna, Humana, and UnitedHealthcare. The health plans provided
HCCI with de-identified medical claims data, from which HCCI is building a comprehensive and valid national
picture of health care cost drivers. Our unique, multi-year, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act (HIPAA) compliant data sets include information from over 6 billion medical claims, representing more
than $1 trillion dollars of health care spending, over 5,000 hospitals, and 1 million different medical service
providers.
HCCI provides data sets upon reviewed request to academic and non-academic researchers. Data access is
guided by policies and procedures that safeguard patient privacy and payer confidentiality, comply with
government regulations, and meet the highest standards of data security, integrity, and legal review.
HCCI is producing a series of annual health care costs and utilization reports that track trends in national
health care spending. The reports examine the spending of the commercially insured who are younger than
age 65 and are covered by employer-sponsored insurance. Current reports cover trends for 2010 and 2011.
Reports on topics of interest, such as the health care spending on children and prescriptions are available
from our website (www.healthcostinstitute.org). HCCI will produce a 2012 report in fall 2013.
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Health Care Cost Institute, Inc.
Website:
www.healthcostinstitute.org
[email protected]
1310 G Street NW
Email:
Suite 720
Phone:
(202) 803-5200
Washington, DC 20005