{"id":9508,"date":"2018-08-02T11:16:11","date_gmt":"2018-08-02T15:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/fammed\/?p=9508"},"modified":"2018-08-29T13:21:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-29T17:21:00","slug":"researchers-find-that-private-insurance-pays-more-for-emergency-department-visits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/fammed\/2018\/08\/02\/researchers-find-that-private-insurance-pays-more-for-emergency-department-visits\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers find that private insurance pays more for emergency department visits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Family Medicine researcher Jonathon Yun, MD, MPH found that, over the past 20 years, private insurers have paid more for a visit to the emergency department than Medicare or Medicaid. For this work, titled \u201cPer-visit Emergency Department Expenditures by Insurance 1996-2015\u201dand published\u00a0in the July edition of\u00a0Health Affairs<\/i><\/a>, UNC Family Medicine fellow Jonathan Yun, MD, MPH, and two other researchers, used data from the 1996 through 2015 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey to study charge and payment trends for ED visits paid by Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance.<\/p>\n

\"Yun<\/a>
NRSA Fellow Jonathon Yun, MD<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 2016, the average annual costs per person for health care in the United States was $10,345, more than twice per capita than other developed countries. These costs are expected to continue to steadily increase.<\/p>\n

\u201cHealth care spending now makes up at least 17 percent of our total Gross Domestic Product,\u201d says Yun. \u201cLooking at spending trends for ED visits is important because emergency department spending has made up an increasing percent of total health costs over the last 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yun is a National Research Service Award Primary Care Research Fellow at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research and a clinical instructor at UNC Family Medicine, both at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.<\/p>\n

The researchers looked at charges and expenditures. Charges are straightforward\u2014the total amount that the hospital charged patients and their insurers. Expenditures are the sum of payments made to ED facilities and providers by insurers and individuals for their care.<\/p>\n

Yun found that:<\/p>\n