It may pay to shop around for health care. New legislation requiring transparency in health insurance coverage allows price comparisons between hospitals, across hospital systems, and with different insurers. In a new issue brief, Vivian Ho and co-author Evelyn Li compare quality and analyze pricing data from Houston area hospitals.

Media stories have raised concerns about Florida’s expansion of advanced trauma centers, with newly designated centers charging high trauma activation fees for relatively minor injuries, and Texas has experienced similar expansion in the last decade. In a new working paper, Chair in Health Economics Vivian Ho and her co-authors study the association between trauma center upgrades and patient outcomes — examining Texas commercial claims to track changes in spending, mortality, and readmissions of trauma patients

Price increases are the biggest driver of rising emergency room visit costs across the U.S., according to research led by the Center for Health and Biosciences' Vivian Ho and Sasathorn Tapaneeyakul.

Abstract

Using the National Academy of State Health Policy Hospital Cost Tool, we compared changes in hospital profits…

By Anshul Bhatnagar, Jingbo Niu, Vivian Ho, Wolfgang C. Winkelmayer and Kevin Erickson

Recent initiatives aim to improve…

Two new bills introduced in the Texas Legislature could jeopardize the care received by Medicaid patients, writes Vivian Ho, the James A. Baker III Institute Chair in Health Economics. She explains why the legislation would weaken county-owned insurance plans and raise Texans’ tax bills.

A comparison of the prices at three major Houston hospitals — Houston Methodist, St. Luke’s Health and Memorial Hermann — associated with Blue Cross Blue Shield and UnitedHealthcare PPO health plans finds wide-ranging costs for services.

This report finds that America's largest companies could be increasing their profits by identifying opportunities to reign in the costs of health insurance coverage — while still maintaining or improving the quality of benefits for their employees.