Monday, August 14, 2023 | The Latest Research, Commentary, And News From Health Affairs
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Price Increases Driving ED Spending In their article in the August issue of Health Affairs, Vivian Ho and coauthors examine the roles of price increases versus upcoding, where providers submit codes for more expensive procedures than those actually administered, as drivers of increased emergency department (ED)
spending.
After analyzing more than three million ED visits across five states, the authors find that price increases were the largest source of overall per visit spending increases in Colorado, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas, and that upcoding was the largest source of spending increases in Massachusetts.
These results suggest that hospital pricing power has increased, but "upcoding was still an important contributor to higher ED spending." The authors suggest that future research could examine "which characteristics are associated with price increases or upcoding and examine whether these two sources of increased spending are
correlated."
Health Affairs' Michael Gerber and Rob Lott discuss the latest developments at the FDA, including the first oral treatment for postpartum depression, the Accelerated Approval Program, and the agency being namechecked on the GOP presidential campaign trail.
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