Thursday, August 17, 2023 | The Latest Research, Commentary, And News From Health Affairs
Dear John,
Today's newsletter features Mark Meiselbach and
coauthors analyzing hospital transparency data with Medicare Advantage (MA) plans.
Higher Hospital Prices For Commercial Plans Than MA In their article in the August issue of Health Affairs, Mark Meiselbach and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins University compare hospital prices negotiated by the same insurer in commercial health insurance and Medicare Advantage (MA) plans.
Using hospital price transparency data, Mark Meiselbach and colleagues analyze negotiated commercial and MA prices at general acute care hospitals for seventy services and five emergency department visit codes.
They conclude that "across all service categories, median commercial prices ranged between 1.8 and 2.7 times more expensive than MA prices." In dollars, the largest difference was within surgery and medicine.
Meiselbach and colleagues find that within the same hospital and insurer for the same service, commercial prices were more than twice MA prices "in most instances."
Health Affairs is the leading peer-reviewedjournalat the intersection of health, health care, and policy. Published monthly by Project HOPE, the journal is available in print and online. Late-breaking
content is also found through healthaffairs.org, Health Affairs Today, and Health Affairs Sunday Update.
Project HOPE is a global health and humanitarian relief organization that places power in the hands of local health care workers to save lives across the globe. Project HOPE has published Health Affairs since 1981.
