Public and Private Insurance Payment Gap Narrowed Between 2012 and 2016

While payments for hospital stays, outpatient hospital care and emergency department (ED) visits grew much faster for privately insured patients than for Medicare and Medicaid patients from 2000 to 2012, that trend of a widening private-public payment gap slowed or even reversed itself from 2012 to 2016, according to a new study published in the journal Health Affairs. The analysis, based on data from AHRQ’s Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), found that private insurers’ payment rates for hospital stays were 66 percent greater than Medicare’s payment rates in 2013, yet had narrowed to only 50 percent greater in 2016. The study also showed that since 2000, hospital charges grew at a faster rate than private insurance payments. Hospital charges, when measured as a percent of Medicare payment rates, grew most rapidly for ED care. Access the abstract.