Health cost inflation slowed in Minn. last year
The cost of health care for people with private health insurance increased just 2 percent from 2016 to 2017, according to a new analysis from Minnesota Community Measurement.
That's a significant reduction from 2015 and 2016 when costs jumped by about 6 percent, said the group's president Julie Sonier, who said one factor was a slowdown in spending on prescription drugs.
"Also, we saw [a] slowdown in spending for outpatient hospital services and those were the two main factors that drove that overall lower increase," Sonier said.
According to Minnesota Community Measurement, the total cost of care ranges from $398 to $1,093 per patient per month on a risk-adjusted basis.
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The study found considerable variation in the cost of services. With imaging services, for example, "on average, in that hospital outpatient setting the prices for those services are about 45 percent higher," than in a free-standing setting, Sonier said.
It's encouraging that the cost of health care has slowed in the last year, but affordability remains a big problem, she said.
The new report is based on claims data for 2017 from the four health plans with the largest commercially-insured patient populations in Minnesota: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, HealthPartners, Medica Health Plans, and PreferredOne. It included costs of 1.5 million patients and total spending of more than $8.6 billion in 2017.
A range of data on the cost and quality of health care services is available from Minnesota Community Measurement's website.