Health Care Market Analysis Finds Pittsburgh Uses Substantially More Services, Resulting in Higher Costs to Employers

To provide its members with a baseline understanding of health care delivery and costs in the Pittsburgh region, the Pittsburgh Business Group on Health (PBGH), commissioned a health care market analysis that found the Pittsburgh region uses substantially more health care services, than comparative markets — Cleveland, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. As analyzed, the Pittsburgh region’s annual burden for additional hospitalizations was $187 million.

The Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute (HCI3) worked with PBGH to analyze the market comparison to better understand the relationship between the supply of hospital beds and the frequency of hospitalizations in the four comparable U.S. metropolitan areas. The findings and recommendations were released today in an HCI3 Issue Brief. The initial research was conducted by FORTE Information Resources.

“Due to the uncertainty of the changing landscape of health care, nationally and in the Pittsburgh region, and the potential impact this may have on employers’ benefits programs, it was critical to develop a baseline understanding of the delivery and cost of health care in our market,” said M. Christine Whipple, PBGH executive director. “It was equally important to determine if the cost and use of health care services is different, and if so, examine how and why. We found that the higher use of services in the Pittsburgh region is producing higher costs for health care. However, without knowing the actual payments to providers for health care services (and the link to the information), it is unclear just how much more employers, and their employees, are paying for health care in our region.”