An Evaluation of Using CPI Indexes to Project Medical Costs in Lost Healthcare Benefits and Medical Life Care Plan Litigation Reports.

摘要: Consulting accountants are often engaged as experts in personal injury litigation where they are required to estimate the future medical costs of disabled individuals within their lost earnings and benefits reports and/or life care plan valuations. In doing so, these experts are likely to rely on medical historical cost growth calculations included in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Assuming that consulting accountants are interested in determining a growth rate that represents the private sector market rate of growth in medical costs, we find that CPI medical cost growth estimates are not a reliable source for this information. Our results show that private sector medical costs have historically increased by more than reported in the BLS data and we propose alternative sources of historical medical cost growth information.