Financing the efficient delivery of medical services while reducing costs for consumers as well as health care providers is among the most challenging domestic policy problems many countries face. RAND addresses health economics issues through innovative, high-profile research in an effort to improve the efficiency of health care organizations, reduce costs for providers and consumers, and improve financing in health care markets.
In its second term, the Obama Administration can restrain further health care spending growth—without compromising quality—by employing four broad strategies: fostering efficient and accountable providers, engaging and empowering consumers, promoting population health, and facilitating high-value innovation.
News Release
Use of anesthesia providers to monitor sedation during screening colonoscopies and other outpatient gastroenterology procedures more than doubled from 2003 to 2009 in the United States, with most of the increase among low-risk patients who may not need this service.
Journal Article
The use of dedicated anesthesia providers for routine gastroenterology (GI) procedures is seen as medically justifiable only for high-risk patients. Eliminating these services for low-risk patients could generate $1.1 billion in savings per year.
Research Brief
The use of dedicated anesthesia providers for routine gastroenterology (GI) procedures is seen as medically justifiable only for high-risk patients. Eliminating these services for low-risk patients could generate $1.1 billion in savings per year.
Past Event
RAND economist Christine Eibner spoke at a Bloomberg Government and RAND Corporation event in Washington, D.C. Eibner briefed the attendees on the results of her recent study, How Would Eliminating the Individual Mandate Affect Health Coverage and Premium Costs?
Journal Article
This paper presents a five-point checklist to guide those who want to improve their performance reporting methods. The goal is to minimize the frequency and severity of misclassifying providers and avoid adverse unintended consequences of reporting.
Commentary
Providing physicians with cost data in real time automatically as a part of the electronic medical record could make them better purchasers for their patients and provide better value, writes Robert H. Brook.
News Release
Eliminating a key part of health care reform that requires all Americans to have health insurance would sharply lower the number of people gaining coverage, but would not dramatically increase the cost of buying policies through new insurance exchanges.
Research Brief
An analysis of the effects of implementing the Affordable Care Act without an individual mandate found that over 12 million people who would have otherwise signed up for coverage will be uninsured and premium prices will increase by 2.4 percent.
Report
Eliminating a key part of health care reform that requires all Americans to have health insurance would sharply lower the number of people gaining coverage, but would not dramatically increase the cost of buying policies through new insurance exchanges.
Journal Article
The financial burden Americans face paying out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs has declined, although prescription costs remain a significant challenge for people with lower incomes and those with public insurance.
News Release
The financial burden Americans face paying out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs has declined, although prescription costs remain a significant challenge for people with lower incomes and those with public insurance.
Journal Article
The technology of the ubiquitous electronic shopping cart could be adapted to help physicians understand the cost of the services they order for patients, and possibly change the mix and total costs of the products in the cart.
Journal Article
We used patient-level quality scores from the Hospital Quality Alliance and ranked hospitals by overall quality and by racial/ethnic disparities and modeled the effects of different pay-for-performance designs on national disparity scores.
Journal Article
Examines net costs to teaching hospitals and cost-effectiveness to society across a range of hypothetical changes in preventable adverse events (PAEs).
Multimedia
Between 1999 and 2009, U.S. health care spending nearly doubled, climbing from $1.3 trillion to $2.5 trillion. The figures are striking, but what have they meant for individual Americans?
Commentary
Most will agree with the undeniable fact that a new era in US medicine and US health care begins in less than two years. The key question is what potential measures should be monitored to determine both anticipated and unanticipated effects of the new law on the health of the US population, writes Robert H. Brook.
Journal Article
Treatment of stroke patients is highly time-sensitive. The risk of death or disability caused by intracranial hemorrhage may increase with both stroke size and time.
Journal Article
PepsiCo's comprehensive health and wellness program increased medical costs for participants in the first year, but reduced costs in the following years.
Journal Article
Rising health costs reduce employment-based private insurance availability and enrollment, and the financial protection provided by it, especially for middle-class families.
Journal Article
The CHIP expansions to children in higher income families were associated with limited uptake of public coverage.
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