title: Assessing the equality of means of healthcare costs.
abstract: The main analytic problems for assessing the equality of means of healthcare costs are the skewed and heteroscedastic nature of the distribution of healthcare costs and the occurrence of persons with zero cost values. Without taking these special features into consideration, any statistical method may lead to the wrong conclusion. The available analytic methods that are appropriate for handling these features of healthcare costs are reviewed.
authors.affiliation: Health Services Research and Development Center of Excellence, Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Healthcare System, Building 1, Rm 424, 1660, S Columbian Way, Seattle, WA 98108, USA. azhou@u.washington.edu
authors.forename: Xiao-Hua Andrew
authors.initials: XH
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ramsey