Journal of Health & Medical Informatics

Statistical Methods and Software Package for Medical Trend Analysis in Health Rate Review Process

Abstract

Yin L ,Wu Q ,Hong D *

Medical trend is the most important component used to indicate and file health insurance rates. Insurance companies apply trend analysis to forecast future costs and premiums. Governments use medical trend in the rate review process. In this paper we discuss four statistical methods: average ratio, linear regression, exponential regression and time series analysis, as well as their use in determining trend factors. An efficient method to detecting the outliers based on leave one out analysis is presented. A software package is developed within Microsoft Excel to calculate medical trend based on annual data or monthly data, which provides a useful tool for the insurance rate review.