Regional Insights: Less health care could be better for us
Share with others:
Last month's column explained how high prices for health care services are a major cause of high health insurance costs both in Pittsburgh and other regions ("Regional Insights: Health Care 'Business as Usual' Not Good Enough," July 3). But health care costs in the Pittsburgh region are also high because we hospitalize people more often than any major region in the country.
The most comprehensive national information about use of health care services comes from Medicare data on senior citizens. In 2007 (the most recent data available), the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care reported that Medicare beneficiaries in the Pittsburgh region who had chronic diseases such as asthma, diabetes, emphysema and heart failure were hospitalized at the highest rate among the 40 major regions in the country. Chronic disease patients here are hospitalized 50 percent more often than the national average.
Medicare beneficiaries in our region also underwent surgery at the fourth highest rate among the top 40 regions -- 10 percent more often than the national average. Pittsburgh seniors had 23 percent more heart valve replacements, 14 percent more heart bypass operations and 8 percent more back surgeries than seniors in the rest of the country.
This dramatically higher amount of hospital care is not due to people being older or sicker in Pittsburgh than in other regions, and it's unlikely that Pittsburgh seniors have both weaker hearts and more bad backs than seniors in the rest of the country.
In fact, when Dartmouth Atlas researchers adjusted for differences in age, sex, race and Medicare payment rates across regions, Pittsburgh ranked No. 1 in the nation in Medicare spending for hospitals and skilled nursing facilities in 2008.
Younger people are also going to the hospital more often here than in other regions. A 2010 study by the actuarial firm Milliman found that for commercially insured individuals, the Pittsburgh region had 6 percent more hospital admissions and 26 percent more emergency room visits than the national average. We had one of the highest rates of emergency room use among 33 regions it analyzed.
High rates of hospitalizations, surgeries and emergency room use are not only expensive, but they're also signs that the region's health care systems aren't functioning efficiently or effectively.
First Published August 7, 2011 12:00 am
