Table 2.
Correlations in Spending and Utilizationa
| Data | Correlation (P) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 Medicare Hospital and Physician Reimbursements |
2006 Thomson Reuters Medical Spending per Member Month, Overall |
2004 Non-Medicare Inpatient Days per Capita |
2004 Medicare Inpatient Days per Capita |
|
| HRR levela | ||||
| 2006 Medicare hospital and physician reimbursements |
1 | |||
| 2006 Thomson Reuters medical spending per member month, overall |
−0.17 (.003) | 1 | ||
| County levelb | ||||
| 2004 Non-Medicare inpatient days per capita |
1 | |||
| 2004 Medicare inpatient days per capita |
0.59 (<.001) | 1 | ||
HRR indicates hospital referral region.
a
Medicare/Thomson correlations were weighted by member months in the Thomson Reuters MarketScan Research Database sample in 2006 and used Thomson Reuters data for firms with data available for at least 5 years from 1996 to 2006; based on sample of all 306 HRRs. Data for Medicare are from the Dartmouth Atlas.
b
County-level Area Resource File correlations were weighted by total population of county in 2004.