Tracking health care costs: trends slow in first half of 2003.

This Data Bulletin is based on data from the Milliman USA Health Cost Index (HCI) ($0 deductible), which is designed to forecast claims trends faced by private insurers and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' National Compensation Survey to track hourly compensation costs for nurses and Producer Price Index for general medical and surgical hospitals to track hospital prices. The HCI classifies spending on services performed in freestanding facilities in its hospital outpatient category, which is consistent with how insurers classify such services. Due to data limitations, the HCI includes spending for Medicaid and uninsured patients, which can cause HCI trends to differ from privately insured trends. The authors have adjusted the HCI estimates to remove the effect of distinct Medicaid hospital price trends. As with most economic data, the HCI is subject to periodic retroactive revisions.