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Health Care Costs

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Controlling spending while improving health care access, efficiency, and outcomes is a significant challenge—one that often dominates policy discussions. To help inform decisionmaking, RAND conducts studies that consider all aspects of health care costs, including medical costs, insurance coverage, reimbursement models, and consumer health care expenses.

News Release
Out-of-Pocket Cost of Naloxone May Keep Many Uninsured from Using Lifesaving Treatment
The cost of buying the opioid antidote naloxone is out of reach for many uninsured Americans, a hurdle that may keep the treatment from saving more people who overdose on opioids.
Aug 19, 2022
Commentary
Medicare Drug Price Negotiation: Key Decisions to Reach a 'Fair Price'
Government negotiation of Medicare drug prices—even for a small set of older, single-source drugs—is a remarkable policy development. But how exactly will the government do it?
Nov 7, 2022

Explore Health Care Costs

Journal Article
Estimated Annual Spending on Lecanemab and Its Ancillary Costs in the US Medicare Program
To estimate annual Medicare spending on lecanemab, we performed a cost analysis using nationally representative survey data from the 2018 Health and Retirement Study (HRS).
May 17, 2023
Testimony
Health Care Consolidation
Health care consolidation reduces competition and contributes to increased health care spending. It also has not yielded improvements in quality or health outcomes for patients. What is the current state of consolidation among U.S. health care providers, insurers, pharmacy benefit managers, and private equity firms?
May 17, 2023
Journal Article
The Impact of Nurse Practitioner-Led Primary Care on Quality and Cost for Medicaid-Enrolled Patients in States With Pay Parity
This retrospective cohort study evaluated the quality and cost implications of receiving primary care from nurse practitioners (NPs) compared to physicians in 14 states that reimburse NPs at the Medicaid fee-for-service physician rate (pay parity).
May 16, 2023
Testimony
Health Care Price Transparency: Opportunities to Improve Affordability and Data Effectiveness
Significant progress has been made to increase the transparency of health care prices at the federal and state levels, but much more needs to be done to leverage price transparency data. Enabling broader use of these data can help address price variation and health care spending.
May 16, 2023
Journal Article
Financial Impact of Telehealth: Rural Chief Financial Officer Perspectives
Understanding how CFOs think about the return on investment of telehealth can inform efforts to promote telehealth utilization in rural communities and to develop policy solutions to make telehealth more sustainable.
May 2, 2023
Report
Impacts of increasing requirements for research and development (R&D) cost transparency: Literature review
A literature review shows that increasing the transparency of the research and development costs of new medicines is much discussed. But there is no evidence of the impact this would have on medicines' prices or the rate of innovation.
Mar 31, 2023
Report
Reforming Military Health Care Costs: Issues for Future Research
The authors of this report describe emerging topics related to military health care costs and policy to provide policymakers and researchers with future research to pursue.
Mar 13, 2023
Report
Quantifying Potential Cost Avoidance Implications of Outcomes Reported in Behavioral and Social Science Research
This report summarizes and develops utility functions for a series of behavioral and social science studies to help senior leaders translate the research results into estimates of cost avoidance or other desired benefits.
Feb 22, 2023
Journal Article
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of CAR T-Cell Therapies Vs Antibody Drug Conjugates for Patients with Advanced Multiple Myeloma
In this analysis, we built a Monte Carlo Markov Chain microsimulation model using estimates and parameters from the evidence on standard treatment for multiple myeloma and chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies.
Jan 25, 2023
Journal Article
Annual Health Care Costs Among Medicare Beneficiaries with Essential Tremor
We estimate the average direct medical expenditures for essential tremor using Medicare claims data. Beneficiaries have $1068 more annual expenditures relative to comparisons. This aggregates to $1.5–$5.4 billion in additional annual costs.
Jan 25, 2023
Commentary
Ten Things That Inspired Me in 2022
It would be impossible to capture all the important work that RAND does in a year. But RAND president and CEO Jason Matheny has compiled ten times he was inspired by RAND's efforts to bring insight to some of the biggest policy stories of 2022.
Dec 15, 2022
Report
Evaluation of Flexible Spending Accounts for Active-Duty Service Members
This report presents an analysis of the implications of flexible spending accounts for active-duty service members and their families that would allow pre-tax payment of dependent care expenses, insurance premiums, and out-of-pocket medical expenses.
Dec 12, 2022
News Release
Americans' Spending Declines Consistently After Age 65; Finding Applies Broadly Across All Wealth Groups
Americans' personal spending drops consistently after age 65, both among the affluent and those with lower levels of financial resources. The findings contradict traditional wisdom that spending will be constant or even increase during older age, and suggests that individuals and couples could spend more early in retirement.
Dec 7, 2022
Report
Americans' Spending Declines Consistently After Age 65
Americans' personal spending drops consistently after age 65, both among the affluent and those with lower levels of financial resources. The findings contradict traditional wisdom that spending will be constant or even increase during older age, and suggests that individuals and couples could spend more early in retirement.
Dec 5, 2022
Journal Article
Paying for PrEP: A Qualitative Study of Cost Factors That Impact Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Uptake in the US
We conducted semi-structured interviews with 25 men who have sex with men who presented for routine health care at a STD clinic about their experiences with accessing and paying for PrEP.
Nov 11, 2022
Journal Article
Part D Senior Savings Model: Model Reach and Scope
This report describes the reach and scope of Medicare's Part D Senior Savings model, which has lower, fixed cost sharing for a specified set of model drugs.
Nov 9, 2022
Journal Article
Association of Medicare Advantage Premiums With Measures of Quality and Patient Experience
This population-based cross-sectional study found that although quality of care and patient experience were slightly higher with higher-premium plans, quality varied widely within each premium category.
Oct 27, 2022
Journal Article
Trends in Out-of-Pocket Costs for Naloxone by Drug Brand and Payer in the US, 2010–2018
The findings suggest that the out-of-pocket cost of naloxone has been an increasingly substantial barrier to naloxone access for uninsured patients, a population that constitutes nearly one-fifth of adults with opioid use disorder.
Oct 27, 2022
Journal Article
Do Noneconomic Damage Caps Reduce Medical Malpractice Insurance Premiums? Evidence from North Carolina
The impact of medical malpractice reforms, especially caps on noneconomic damages, is of special interest to policymakers and physicians. This study uses data from North Carolina to examine how caps implemented in noncrisis periods affect malpractice premiums.
Sep 23, 2022

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RAND Topic:
Health Care Costs

Topic Synonyms:
Healthcare Costs;
Medical Costs

Research conducted by

RAND Health Care

Researcher Spotlight

Peter S. Hussey

Vice President and Director, RAND Health Care

Peter Hussey is vice president and director of RAND Health Care, a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Previously, he directed the RAND Health Services Delivery Systems program. As director of RAND Health Care, he manages one of…
Nabeel Qureshi

Assistant Policy Researcher, RAND, and Ph.D. Candidate, Pardee RAND Graduate School

Nabeel Qureshi is an assistant policy researcher at RAND and a Ph.D. candidate at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Prior to joining Pardee RAND, he was a policy analyst at RAND focusing on health services research.

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