“Children’s Health Care Spending Report 2007-2010” showed healthcare costs and utilization for children aged 18 and below with employer-sponsored, private health insurance.
The report revealed a 2.8 percent decrease in inpatient admissions and a 2.9 percent decrease in outpatient visits by children from 2007 to 2010. The greatest decrease in outpatient visits was for emergency room visits, which dropped 4.7 percent.
In contrast, utilization of mental health and substance abuse services increased 23.8 percent and the number of professional procedures, such as primary care visits and surgery, increased 6.7 percent. Children’s use of other outpatient services, including lab/pathology, radiology services and ancillary services, increased 10.5 percent.
The report is based on HIPAA data sets from three billion health insurance claims provided by Aetna, Humana and UnitedHealthcare.
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