ABSTRACT OF SUGGESTED READING:
SR2-7 G. Thomas Ray, Francois Collin, Tracy Lieu, and et al., "The Cost of Health Conditions in a Health Maintenance Organization," Medical Care Research and Review, vol. 57, number 1 (March 2000): 92 – 109.
This study was funded by Permanente Medical Group. This is a retrospective analysis of all adults who were members of Kaiser Permanente, Northern California between July 1995 and June 1996 and the authors estimated prevalence, average annual costs per person, and percentage of total direct medical expenditures attributed to each of 25 chronic and acute conditions. Renal failure ($22,636), colorectal cancer ($10,506), pneumonia ($9.499( and lung cancer ($8,612) were the most expensive conditions per person per year.
Provision of cost-effective healthcare services will require both the development and implementation of more cost-effective care models and the rational budgeting and monitoring of costs.
Cost estimates of individual conditions are increasingly common, few studies to estimate costs for a large number of the most chronic and acute conditions found in a large HMO population.
