Treatment Price Indexes for Acute Phase Major Depression

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Abstract
Much has been written in the last decade on broad trends in medical care spending in the United States. Although the most recent evidence is somewhat ambiguous, the apparent slowdown in the rate of increase in aggregate health expenditures over the last five years has been welcomed by many governments, employers, patients, and insurers. This chapter reports on the first three years of a research program aimed at measuring prices and output for the treatment of acute phase major depression. The approach taken in this program of research builds on several recent efforts to construct price indexes for medical care. The chapter begins with an overview of current U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics procedures for constructing medical care price indexes, and then provides a background on the nature of and alternative treatments for acute phase major depression. It also considers quantities and prices of the treatment bundles from 1991 to 1995, describes aggregate price indexes similar to the Consumer Price Index and the Producer Price Index, and comments on an initial analysis involving hedonic price procedures.

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