Michal Horný, Daniel Chang, Eric W Christensen, Elizabeth Y Rula, Richard Duszak
{"title":"Decomposition of medical imaging spending growth between 2010 and 2021 in the US employer-insured population.","authors":"Michal Horný, Daniel Chang, Eric W Christensen, Elizabeth Y Rula, Richard Duszak","doi":"10.1093/haschl/qxae030","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Medical imaging, identified as a potential driver of unsustainable US health care spending growth, was subject to policies to reduce prices and use in low-value settings. Meanwhile, the Affordable Care Act increased access to preventive services-many involving imaging-for employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) beneficiaries. We used a large insurance claims database to examine imaging spending trends in the ESI population between 2010 and 2021-a period of considerable policy and benefits changes. Nominal spending on imaging increased 35.9% between 2010 and 2021, but as a share of total health care spending fell from 10.5% to 8.9%. The 22.5% growth of nominal imaging prices was below inflation, 24.3%, as measured by the Consumer Price Index. Other key contributors to imaging spending growth were increased use (7.4 percentage points [pp]), shifts toward advanced modalities (4.0 pp), and demographic changes (3.5 pp). Shifts in care settings and provider network participation resulted in 2.5-pp and 0.3-pp imaging spending decreases, respectively. In sum, imaging spending decreased as a share of all health care spending and relative to inflation, as intended by concurrent cost-containment policies.</p>","PeriodicalId":94025,"journal":{"name":"Health affairs scholar","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10986240/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Health affairs scholar","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/haschl/qxae030","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/3/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Medical imaging, identified as a potential driver of unsustainable US health care spending growth, was subject to policies to reduce prices and use in low-value settings. Meanwhile, the Affordable Care Act increased access to preventive services-many involving imaging-for employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) beneficiaries. We used a large insurance claims database to examine imaging spending trends in the ESI population between 2010 and 2021-a period of considerable policy and benefits changes. Nominal spending on imaging increased 35.9% between 2010 and 2021, but as a share of total health care spending fell from 10.5% to 8.9%. The 22.5% growth of nominal imaging prices was below inflation, 24.3%, as measured by the Consumer Price Index. Other key contributors to imaging spending growth were increased use (7.4 percentage points [pp]), shifts toward advanced modalities (4.0 pp), and demographic changes (3.5 pp). Shifts in care settings and provider network participation resulted in 2.5-pp and 0.3-pp imaging spending decreases, respectively. In sum, imaging spending decreased as a share of all health care spending and relative to inflation, as intended by concurrent cost-containment policies.