title: An analysis of the causes of increases in Medicaid payments, New Jersey, 1970-74.
abstract: An examination of the causes of the increases in payments made for 9 of the 17 health services provided by the New Jersey Medicaid program during calendar years 1970-74 revealed that most of the overall increase occurred because of an increase in utilization, followed by increases in prices and the number of eligible persons. An analysis of the annual rates of change for each of the three factors showed that price changes did not conform to any discernible pattern, while most of the increase in eligible persons plus a substantial amount of the increase in utilization occurred during 1970-71. The findings suggest that Medicaid payments will continue to increase in the future. However, because of uncertainty about the magnitude of price and utilization changes, coupled with uncertainty about whether the Medicaid umbrella will be expanded, as it was most recently by the 1972 Amendments to the Social Security Act, no definitive conclusions were reached about the size of future increases in Medicaid payments.
mesh_terms: D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D004608:Eligibility Determination; D005102:Health Expenditures; D006296:Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008484:Medicaid; D009515:New Jersey; D014600:Utilization Review