• Chart of the day: U.S. health spending by service and age

      01/06/2013
      Austin Frakt

    From Deloitte and h/t Bruce Bartlett (click to enlarge):

    hc spending age svc

    @afrakt

     
      Explaining Research
      health care spending
    item.php

    • by civisisus on January 6th, 2013 at 22:37

      Please, a companion chart, showing the probability of any individual in any of the displayed age categories experiencing health events that produce spending at or above the average. Some indication of the spread of costs, their wildly uneven dispersion within those age ranges.

      if there’s anything we know of health care costs, it’s the extremely skewed DISTRIBUTION of those costs. Use of averages in this realm without at very least hedging them about with caveats verges on the pernicious.

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    • by Dan Ross on January 7th, 2013 at 00:31

      From over 10 years of analyzing large, self-funded, employer plan-sponsor health data, I’m curious of the relative small portion aligned to hospital? My experience shows 60%+ of total expenditures going to the hospital setting. I wonder what services are incorporated under professional? Possibly outpatient hospital?

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    • by Zachary Smulski on January 10th, 2013 at 15:26

      Likewise, hospital expenses appear too low based on my 20+ years of experience analyzing health care data. Also, aggregating total cost by age band rather than per capital can be misleading to the casual reader.

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