Washington Post: Data trove may shed light on health-care uncertainties
How much do hospitals and doctors actually charge insurers for their services? How much and which of those services are privately-insured patients using? And, most significantly, what drives changes in health-care use, costs, and total spending?
They are among the most vexing questions in American health care. And a recently amassed trove of data from insurance companies could soon shed new light on them.
Compiled by the non-profit, non-partisan Health Care Cost Institute, the database will allow researchers to slice and dice more than 3 billion medical claims for more than 33 million individuals in search of answers.