TY - JOUR AU - Berndt,Ernst R. AU - Cutler,David M. AU - Frank,Richard G. AU - Griliches,Zvi AU - Newhouse,Joseph P. TI - Price Indexes for Medical Care Goods and Services: An Overview of Measurement Issues JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 6817 PY - 1998 Y2 - November 1998 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6817 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6817.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Ernst R. Berndt MIT Sloan School of Management 100 Main Street, E62-518 Cambridge, MA 02142 Tel: 617/253-2665 Fax: 617-227-0880 E-Mail: eberndt@mit.edu David M. Cutler Department of Economics Harvard University 1875 Cambridge Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Tel: 617/496-5216 Fax: 617/496-8951 E-Mail: dcutler@harvard.edu Richard Frank Department of Health Care Policy Harvard Medical School 180 Longwood Avenue Boston, MA 02115 Tel: 617/432-0178 Fax: 617/432-1219 E-Mail: frank@hcp.med.harvard.edu Zvi Griliches E-Mail: N/A user is deceased Joseph P. Newhouse Division of Health Policy Research and Education Harvard University 180 Longwood Avenue Boston, MA 02115-5899 Tel: 617/432-1325 Fax: 617/432-3503 E-Mail: newhouse@hcp.med.harvard.edu M1 - published as Ernst R. Berndt, David M. Cutler, Richard Frank, Zvi Griliches, Joseph P. Newhouse, Jack E. Triplett. "Price Indexes for Medical Care Goods and Services -- An Overview of Measurement Issues," in David M. Cutler and Ernst R. Berndt, editors, "Medical Care Output and Productivity" University of Chicago Press (2001) AB - We review in considerable detail the conceptual and measurement issues that underlie construction of medical care price indexes in the U.S., particularly the medical care consumer price indexes (MCPIs) and medical-related producer price indexes (MPPIs). We outline salient features of the medical care marketplace, including the impacts of insurance, moral hazard, principal-agent relationships, technological progress and organizational changes. Since observed data are unlikely to correspond with efficient outcomes, we discuss implications of the failure of transactions data in this market to reveal reliable marginal valuations, and the consequent need to augment traditional transactions data with information based on cost-effectiveness and outcomes studies. We describe procedures currently used by the BLS in constructing MCPIs and MPPIs, including recent revisions, and then consider alternative notions of medical care output pricing that involve the price or cost of an episode of treatment, rather than prices of fixed bundles of inputs. We outline features of a proposed new experimental price index -- a medical care expenditure price index -- that is more suitable for evaluation and analyses of medical care cost changes, than are the current MCPIs and MPPIs. We conclude by suggesting future research and measurement issues that are most likely to be fruitful. ER -