Healthcare Service Costing: Pricing Perspectives and Case Studies for Life Care Planners

For forty years, one goal that all life care planners have had is the measurement of future costs projections. The discussion of damage calculations dates back to the work of Dr. Paul Deutsch with the introduction of principles in life care planning. Embedded within current day standards are reference to associated costs for services identified in a life care plan. The growing availability of healthcare pricing databases has the potential to improve aggregated charge data access to support future cost projections. This paper provides guidance to the life care planner in determining costs for these goods and services through use of commonly used costing databases. It describes steps by which a life care planning practitioner, by following a structured methodology which utilizes these healthcare pricing databases, can make reasonably reliable cost estimates of professional and facility-based medical services. Case examples will provide further illustration for a professional service and a facility based service.