Medical inflation is consistently a top stakeholder concern. Publicly available inflation indices published by the federal government provide an advantage in tracking trends in medical inflation due to their near real-time nature.
Previous NCCI research identified the Personal Health Care (PHC) price index, published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), as the publicly available medical price index that most closely matches workers compensation. While the PHC closely matches the price changes that we monitor and can be impactful to the industry, it lacks the key advantage of real-time tracking of other public indices. To solve this, we constructed the Workers Compensation Weighted Medical Price Index (WCWMI).
This paper details the purpose of this new index, the components of its construction, and potential improvements for future iterations. Additionally, available the first month after each quarter end, our new
Medical Inflation Insights publication will be available on
ncci.com to keep you up to date on how medical prices evolved over the quarter and key takeaways for workers compensation.
Key Themes and Takeaways
- NCCI consistently hears from stakeholders that medical inflation is a top concern, and we are responding with insights, data, and NCCI’s newly developed Workers Compensation Weighted Medical Price Index.
- The WCWMI is constructed using monthly inflation indices to give a real-time look at how price changes are trending and is weighted to match workers compensation more closely than other indices.
- The
Medical Inflation Insights (MII) report provides a quarterly update on how a multitude of inflation metrics are trending while providing insights on how these trends could impact workers compensation.
Check out the full
Quarterly Economics Briefing to learn more.
You can also access the latest
Medical Inflation Insights for a quarterly overview of the latest insights and analysis into what is driving changes in prices, and how these changes may or may not impact workers compensation.
Connect with our
Economics Team if you have questions or want to gain additional insights.
This article is provided solely as a reference tool to be used for informational purposes only. The information in this article shall not be construed or interpreted as providing legal or any other advice. Use of this article for any purpose other than as set forth herein is strictly prohibited.
