• Center on Health Equity and Access
  • Clinical
  • Health Care Cost
  • Health Care Delivery
  • Insurance
  • Policy
  • Technology
  • Value-Based Care

Bret Jackson Outlines Findings, Origins, Next Steps of RAND Hospital Pricing Comparison Study

Video

A RAND study comparing hospital prices across states provided insights into the drivers of high healthcare spending in Michigan, explained Bret Jackson, president of the Economic Alliance for Michigan.

A RAND study comparing hospital prices across states provided insights into the drivers of high healthcare spending in Michigan, explained Bret Jackson, president of the Economic Alliance for Michigan.

Transcript

Michigan recently participated in a RAND study comparing hospital prices for privately insured patients to a Medicare benchmark. What were the results?

The results showed wide variation of hospital prices, especially outpatient prices, across the country. And it was really staggering what the differences were from state to state. Michigan actually fared pretty well in having some of the lowest prices in the country. However, we know that our premiums are above average for the states that are in the study and that total spending of healthcare is high in Michigan. And so, now that we know that prices are low, we know that the problem lies in utilization.

This was version 2.0 of the RAND study. What was the purpose of it and how did it differ from the 1.0 version? What is next?

They had done the study, they had just looked at Indiana, and then afterwards they were like, “Okay, well this seems like it’s high, but we have no idea how that compares to anybody else,” because they had no benchmark. So the 2.0 study was a 25-state study, looking at how Indiana compared to all the other states that participated. Now we’re trying to look at a 3.0 study, where we’re trying for a 50-state strategy so we can compare how everybody’s doing.

Related Videos
Phaedra Corso, PhD, associate vice president for research at Indiana University
William Padula, PhD, MSc, MS, assistant professor of pharmaceutical and health economics, University of California Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Screenshot of Angela Jia, MD, PhD, during a video interview
Nancy Dreyer, MPH, PhD, FISE, chief scientific advisor to Picnic Health
Screenshot of Alexander Kutikov, MD, during a video interview
Neil Goldfarb, CEO, Greater Philadelphia Business Coalition on Health
Screenshot of Mary Dunn, MSN, NP-C, OCN, RN, during a video interview
Seth Berkowitz, MD, MPH, associate professor of medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Inma Hernandez, PharmD, PhD, professor at the University of California, San Diego Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Screenshot of Joshua Meeks, MD, PhD, during a video interview
Related Content
© 2024 MJH Life Sciences
AJMC®
All rights reserved.