Average hospital outpatient department prices for common imaging, colonoscopy and laboratory services can be double the price for identical services provided in a physician’s office or other community-based setting.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) established provisions intended to increase access to affordable health insurance and thus increase access to medical care and long-term surveillance for populations with pre-existing conditions. However, childhood cancer survivors' coverage...

A permanent repeal of the sustainable growth rate (SGR) as part of a package of other payment reforms can lead to lower health care costs and improved care, according to this Health Affairs article by Mathematica senior fellow James Reschovsky. The article assesses last year's attempt by...

This article investigates nationwide geographic variation in utilization of Medicare-covered services by service category. Variation in the use of home health care and durable medical equipment across sites was the major driver of geographic variation in total service use for Medicare...

A study examining the relationship between hospital characteristics and hospital prices can help inform the debate on controlling health care costs. Compared to other hospitals, high-price hospitals tend to be larger, be major teaching hospitals, belong to systems with large market shares,...

This issue brief finds that when episodes of care involving hospitalizations, similar to Model 2 of the ongoing Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Bundled Payment for Care Improvement demonstration, are applied to privately insured patients, inpatient prices drive the bulk of...

Addresses the suitability of some commonly used statistical software packages for analyzing the Community Tracking Study surveys of households and physicians, to help data users make informed choices about the software they use. Because of the complexity of the CTS survey designs, SUDAAN is the...