HealthLeaders Media July 7, 2020
KFF stated that increased provider consolidation as a result of the pandemic could lead to hospitals gaining additional leverage to “demand higher prices from private insurers.”
Private insurance rates were up to 2.5 times higher than Medicare rates across 10 DRGs, according to a brief published by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) Tuesday.
The KFF research found that private insurance rates “varied more widely” than Medicare rates and that the average private insurance rates for diagnoses related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) rose up to 22% between 2014 to 2017.
The study noted that if Medicare’s temporary 20% add-on for hospitals that treat patients infected with COVID-19 were applied in 2017, the gap with private insurers would have been smaller.
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