Our Areas of Expertise

KNG Health has expertise in a wide range of comparative effectiveness research methods. Through cost-effectiveness analysis, we demonstrate the additional cost to achieve a health outcome, such as an additional quality-adjusted life year. In cost-benefit analysis, we quantify the cost and benefits associated with different health outcomes to be able to compare options on a monetary basis. While our estimates of costs include traditional cost categories of healthcare expenditures by payers and patients, we often take a societal perspective by including indirect costs, such as the impact of treatment on patient earnings. This approach provides a more accurate assessment of the value of specific treatments and medical devices.

Our knowledge of the Medicare program is comprehensive, covering payment policy, quality measures, and operational aspects of new models of care delivery, such as the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) initiative and the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) model. We work with federal and state government agencies, as well as provider associations representing short-term acute care hospitals and the post-acute care sector. We have superior expertise in working with Medicare claims data to examine impacts of new payment policies and programs on providers and patients. For several years, we have been providing technical assistance to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services as it implements the new Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) policy prescribed the by the ACA.

From examining the coverage impacts of Medicaid expansion nationally and regionally to analyzing Medicaid payments (specifically DSH payments) to specific hospitals, we bring a broad perspective to our Medicaid work. With these studies of Medicaid impacts, we have gained extensive experience in working with Medicaid data—and in addressing the challenges associated with these data.

With the proliferation of value-based purchasing programs and other measures intended to bend the health care cost curve, providers need to understand the drivers behind the costs of their services to identify opportunities for savings. We help providers assess the cost and utilization associated with specific procedures and treatments in different care settings and with different patient populations.

In today’s dynamic health care sector, providers need reliable market intelligence to make sound business decisions. Using various data sources, including Medicare claims data and data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP), we have conducted market analyses for providers seeking to assess future demand for their services, in their current market areas and in potential new markets. Our forecast model uses the latest projections on demographic changes in U.S. and is linked with the KNG Health Reform Model to assess the impact of coverage changes on the demand for healthcare services.