The brainiacs at NCCI have a must-read post detailing physician services’ costs and utilization in most states.
Gotta say this is one of the most useful and insightful analyses I’ve seen from anyone. Kudos to NCCI.
Couple highlights…
- VERY wide range of physician costs – on a service year basis, state costs range from $800 to almost 4 times that.
- Using NCCI’s utilization metric (units), utilization varied almost as much – from fewer than 1000 to more than 2500 units.
- one of the most insightful learnings is about the factors contributing to variations in utilization…
- “service intensity” is the most important driver of variation; NCCI’s definition is the “collection and type of physician services rendered on average for a claim given its diagnosis and whether there was a major surgery.”
What does this mean for you?
Your medical management strategy MUST be state-specific.
