Objective. To provide guidelines to researchers measuring health expenditures by
disease and compare these methodologies’ implied inflation estimates.
Data Source. A convenience sample of commercially insured individuals over the
2003 to 2007 period from Truven Health. Population weights are applied, based on
age, sex, and region, to make the sample of over 4 million enrollees representative of
the entire commercially insured population.
Study Design. Different methods are used to allocate medical-care expenditures to
distinct condition categories. We compare the estimates of disease-price inflation by
method.
Principal Findings. Across a variety of methods, the compound annual growth rate
stays within the range 3.1 to 3.9 percentage points. Disease-specific inflation measures
are more sensitive to the selected methodology.
Conclusion. The selected allocation method impacts aggregate inflation rates, but
considering the variety of methods applied, the differences appear small. Future
research is necessary to better understand these differences in other population samples
and to connect disease expenditures to measures of quality.