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Price Indexes for the Treatment of Depression

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Author Info
Richard G. Frank
Ernst R. Berndt
Susan H. Busch
Abstract

We construct price indexes for treatment of a specific illness, acute phase major depression, using treatment episodes of care (rather than fixed input bundles) to define quantity. We identify different treatment service bundles that combine varying quantities of prescription drugs, medical management and psychotherapy. We make use of results from clinical research and official government guidelines for standards of care to identify therapeutically similar treatment bundles. We then employ various index number formulae that involve differing assumptions on the extent of ex ante substitutability among these treatment bundles. Rather than using list prices, we utilize actual transactions data based on a MEDSTAT retrospective medical claims data base covering more than 400,000 individuals over the 1991-95 time period. We distinguish between consumers' direct payments (a CPI index) and total payments received by providers (a PPI). Although not directly comparable to BLS indexes indicating 15-25% price growth 1991-95, our CPI and PPI price indexes decline 20-30%, implying an average annual price differential from BLS indexes of about -15%.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 6417.

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Date of creation: Feb 1998
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6417

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
C43 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Index Numbers and Aggregation

References listed on IDEAS
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  1. David Cutler & Mark McClellan & Joseph Newhouse, 1998. "The Costs and Benefits of Intensive Treatment for Cardiovascular Disease," NBER Working Papers 6514, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. David M. Cutler & Mark McClellan & Joseph P. Newhouse & Dahlia Remler, 1996. "Are Medical Prices Declining?," NBER Working Papers 5750, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Diewert, W. E., 1976. "Exact and superlative index numbers," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 115-145, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Rowena Jacobs, 2009. "Investigating Patient Outcome Measures in Mental Health," Working Papers 048cherp, Centre for Health Economics, University of York. [Downloadable!]
  2. Susan H. Busch & Ernst R. Berndt & Richard G. Frank, 2001. "Creating Price Indexes for Measuring Productivity in Mental Health Care," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, Berkeley Electronic Press, vol. 4. [Downloadable!]
  3. J. Steven Landefeld & Barbara M. Fraumeni, 2001. "Measuring the New Economy," BEA Papers 0009, Bureau of Economic Analysis. [Downloadable!]
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