By Cari Frank, MBA It was the coldest shower I had taken in a long time, and it ended up saving my life. I was spending Christmas 2021 in Belize with my family, and our hotel had no hot water. A minor thing, given that I was in paradise. One Read more…
The Role of Health Insurance in Access to New Medical Technologies: A Case Study of BRCA Genetic Testing for Breast Cancer Patients While working on her master’s thesis, Colorado student Emily Hammad, encountered a female patient recently diagnosed with breast cancer and struggling to plan for the future. The patient Read more…
The Ask the Analyst series is a deep dive into the data by those most familiar with the CO APCD – the analysts themselves. We’ll hear about their experiences with recent analyses and answer any pressing questions that come up. Have a question for the CIVHC Analyst Team? Email it Read more…
For Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we are using the Center for Improving Value in Health Care’s (CIVHC) Community Dashboard, powered by data from the Colorado All Payer Claims Database (CO APCD), to look at breast cancer screening rates in Colorado. Breast cancer is one of the most common types of Read more…
Recently, the Center for Improving Value in Health Care (CIVHC) released an updated Medicare Reference Based Pricing Analysis, the final analysis in the Affordability Dashboard. As with the other analyses on the dashboard, Medicare Referenced Based Pricing is another tool providing insight on ways to approach lowering health care costs Read more…
Urban-Rural Disparities in Health Care Quality for Children with Medical and Social Complexity In a study of hospitalizations at children’s hospitals, rural-residing children have a higher prevalence of complex chronic conditions, higher inpatient costs, risk of readmissions. In an effort to dig deeper, in 2018, Dr. JoAnna Leyenaar, MD, PhD, Read more…
The Ask the Analyst series is a deep dive into the data by those most familiar with the CO APCD – the analysts themselves. We’ll hear about their experiences with recent analyses and answer any pressing questions that come up. Have a question for the CIVHC Analyst Team? Email it Read more…
Having a baby is expensive across the United States; a new study from Kaiser Family Foundation found that the average cost of giving birth is $18,865 (including both vaginal and cesarean deliveries). This month’s data dive looks at the cost of labor and delivery in Colorado and how those costs Read more…
Health care costs are rising rapidly across the country, and Colorado is not exempt – a previous analysis using data from the Colorado All Payer Claims Database (CO APCD) found that cost of care in our state increased by 13% from 2013 to 2019. To address rising costs, there are Read more…
Evaluating the Premium Sponsorship Program Colorado hit historic health insurance milestones in 2017, with over 5 million lives covered and a historically low uninsured rate of 6.5%. Meanwhile, high premiums continued to be a consistent barrier to coverage, with nearly 350,000 Coloradans remaining uninsured. Help was coming. That same year, Read more…