Four payors pool data to assess nationwide costs, utilization

The Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI), a health research initiative led by payors Aetna, Humana, Kaiser Permanente and UnitedHealthcare, was launched to allow researchers and policymakers access to a collection of health plan and government payor data. The HCCI said this initiative will offer new insights into healthcare costs, utilization and intensity, as well as inform the public policy process and assist in developing new solutions to long-term problems confronting the healthcare system.

Led by Martin S. Gaynor, PhD, a professor of economics and health policy at the Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University School of Public Policy and Management in Pittsburgh, HCCI is an independent and nonprofit entity that both provides researchers with access to datasets of commercial costs and utilization, and conducts its own research. 

Beginning in 2012, HCCI plans to publish scorecards and supporting analysis on aggregate trends of healthcare costs and utilization.

HCCI will provide access to de-identified data from plans operated by Aetna, Humana, Kaiser Permanente and UnitedHealthcare, as well as some government data from Medicare Fee-For-Service and Medicare Advantage activity.

These data will include more than five billion medical claim records representing more than $1 trillion of healthcare activity from more than 5,000 hospitals and one million service providers from calendar year 2000 through the present. Additionally, the commercial data will be updated regularly to ensure its usefulness for research purposes.

HCCI’s governing board also will work to broaden the list of participating health plans and add more data from government payors, including Medicaid.

Data will be de-identified in accordance with HIPAA requirements. The HCCI will establish a Data Integrity Committee whose primary focus will be on all matters related to data privacy, security and integrity. This will include the establishment of Data Contribution Agreements between HCCI and organizations supplying data to ensure data are de-identified in compliance with HIPAA and other legal and regulatory requirements. In addition, the HCCI will establish data use agreements with researchers that will define specific parameters to ensure compliance with HIPAA regulations and other applicable laws.

The HCCI Governing Board is:

• Martin S. Gaynor, PhD (Chair)
• Alan M. Garber, MD, PhD, the provost of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., and Mallinckrodt’s professor of healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School, and is also a professor in the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
• Jonathan Gruber, PhD, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., the director of the healthcare program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, the co-editor of the Journal of Public Economics, and an associate editor of the Journal of Health Economics.
• Elizabeth G. Nabel, MD, president of the Brigham and Women's Hospital/Faulkner Hospitals in Boston. Nabel is a council member at the Institute of Medicine and a member of the editorial board of the New England Journal of Medicine.
• Dale H. Yamamoto, FSA, represents the Society of Actuaries (Chicago) on the board and is the president-elect of the Conference of Consulting Actuaries.
• Stephen T. Parente, PhD, a professor of health finance and insurance in the department of finance in the Carlson School of Management at University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He specializes in health economics, health insurance, medical technology evaluation and health IT.
• Harvey V. Fineberg, MD, MPP, PhD, (External Advisor to the Governing Board) is president of the Institute of Medicine.