183-2012: Physician Practice Pattern Variation: Using Data Mining and Predictive Modeling to Identify and Control Costly Treatment Patterns

Health insurance providers want to control the ever-increasing cost of health care while ensuring quality outcomes. Learn how SAS® Enterprise Guide® and SAS® Enterprise MinerTM can be used to identify which physicians are generating excessive costs and which practice patterns are leading to cost-reduction opportunities. This analysis of physician practice pattern variation focuses on an automated layered reporting method for producing actionable results with output to Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word. The challenge is to devise an approach to model the expected costs associated with treating a given condition (for example, upper-respiratory infections). This discussion covers the three main areas of this type of project: standardized data preparations, explanatory modeling, and information delivery (highlighting an approach to turning analytical output into actionable information).