Minnesota Releases Nation’s First Total Cost of Care Data for Medical Groups
07 Jan 2015
A new report has just been published by MN Community Measurement that allows consumers for the first time to compare the cost of care at medical groups across the state. Costs from more than 1.5 million patients were included in the report, which is the nation’s most comprehensive look at the total cost of care. Information is available for 115 medical groups, representing 1,052 clinics across Minnesota and in neighboring communities on MNHealthScores.org.
The average monthly cost of medical care per patient is $435 and just a small reduction could save millions. A reduction in the average per patient cost of just $12 per month, or $144 per year, would save Minnesotans $750 million in health care costs annually.
Total Cost of Care is a National Quality Forum (NQF)-endorsed methodology, which includes all costs associated with treating commercially-insured patients, including professional, facility inpatient and outpatient, pharmacy, lab, radiology, behavioral health and ancillary costs. NQF is considered the gold standard of health care measurement.
The total cost of care is the full cost – paid by both patients and health insurance companies. The amounts have been risk-adjusted and outlier costs have been removed to create a level playing field for all medical groups so true differences in cost can be evaluated.
This report includes data based on 2013 claims from the four health plans in Minnesota with the largest commercially-insured populations: Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, HealthPartners, Medica and PreferredOne. The health care costs evaluated for this report totaled more than $8 billion.
“Total cost of care is a major problem in our society, not just for health care,” said Dr. David Satin, family medicine physician with University of Minnesota Physicians and assistant professor at the University of Minnesota’s Medical School. “There’s a wide swath of things we can do today to improve the total cost of care – in particular beginning to discuss and eliminate unwarranted variation in care.”