Help

BI’s Article search uses Boolean search capabilities. If you are not familiar with these principles, here are some quick tips.

To search specifically for more than one word, put the search term in quotation marks. For example, “workers compensation”. This will limit your search to that combination of words.

To search for a combination of terms, use quotations and the & symbol. For example, “hurricane” & “loss”.

Login Register Subscribe

Indices to track health care cost changes

Reprints

NEW YORK—Standard & Poor’s Corp. has entered into an agreement with Health Index Advisors, a joint Aon Consulting and Milliman Inc. venture, to develop and publish a family of indices tracking changes in the cost of health care services in the United States.

The first index series to launch—expected during the fourth quarter of 2010—will be the S&P Healthcare Economic Indices. The indices will attempt to reflect per capita changes in total allowed claims costs incurred by patients—through their copayments—and health care benefit plans for services provided by hospitals and physicians.

The health care indices will provide “an important measure for insurance companies, employers and governments to understand and monitor changes in the primary cost components of the U.S. health care markets,” David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Indices, said in statement.

“We believe the indices will be the basis for developing new risk management tools, allowing employers to better manage future health care cost increases, Andrew Appel, chief operating officer of Aon Corp., the parent of Aon Consulting, said in a statement.

When the indices are launched, the methodology, fact sheet and supporting research for the health care indices will be available at www.standardandpoors.com/indices.