1 New Hampshire Acute Care Hospital Comparison

This analysis was performed by the New Hampshire Insurance Department (NHID) to compare short term general hospital costs incurred by commercial insurance carriers in New Hampshire (NH). The term " costs " is used to describe the amount due to the hospital for commercially insured patients, and includes the amounts paid by the health insurance carrier and the total patient liability (deductibles, coinsurance, and co-payments). Payments to hospitals are considered " costs " from an insurance perspective, but do not necessarily reflect internal hospital costs to deliver the services. The 26 New Hampshire hospitals were analyzed separately on an inpatient and outpatient basis using data from calendar year 2006 (2005 was also used to analyze changes occurring between years). Payment for hospital services, referred to as " reimbursement, " is determined by the contract between the carrier and the hospital and is often referred to as the " allowed " rate. The allowed rate includes health plan and patient payment responsibilities (i.e., co-payments and coinsurance) to the hospital. The cost measure in this analysis considers both the allowed rates and the utilization of services. The cost measure does not distinguish between carriers or health plan product type (e.g. HMO, POS, PPO, and Indemnity). Cost differences are likely to differ between carriers, but this analysis focuses on comparing hospitals in aggregate. The results are shown below, listing hospitals with the lowest composite score to the highest. Relative costs are expressed in the form of an index value. A value of 1.00 represents a hospital with average relative costs when compared to other NH hospitals. A value of 1.10 means the hospital is ten percent more expensive than the average hospital for patients of similar resource intensity. *These results are influenced by hospital billed physician services. Please see the Notes on Analysis section for a full explanation. The results show that the majority of hospitals are ranked within twenty percent of the average. Based on the composite score, 14 hospitals fall below the average, two are average, and ten are above average. This analysis was performed for the purpose of informing NH Citizens Health Initiative (the Initiative) stakeholders about the relative costs between NH hospitals. Participants of the Initiative understand that hospital costs contribute substantially to the price of health insurance premiums, and a better understanding of costs drivers may assist with efforts to reduce the escalation of health insurance premiums. The …