Morristown On Short List of American Cities With Declining Healthcare Costs

Morristown Medical Center and its affiliated doctors and offices are often praised and honored with regional and national accolades based on patient care.

Now the area’s largest medical provider has a new notch in its belt, and this one impacts patients’ wallets.

According to an independent study by betterdoctor.com, which evaluated the increasing costs of healthcare nationwide between 2011 and 2013, Morristown found itself on the opposite side of trend, seeing a decrease in the cost of healthcare – just one of 32 cities in the country to do so. Not only was Morristown on the decreasing costs side, it had the second highest percentage of decrease on the list.

The study showed that from 2011 to 2013, healthcare in Morristown, New Jersey dropped 4.38%, second only to Casper, Wyoming, which dropped 8.28%.

In the opposite direction, healthcare costs in Canton, Ohio, rose 39.29% during the same time, which topped the increased costs lists. No New Jersey towns or medical centers were among the top 25 in the rising costs category.

According to the website, an explanation of cities with decreased costs was:

These cities’ procedure costs submitted to Medicare were impressively slow changing. In our study we only looked at average procedure cost changes – not price differences, so these cities might have hospitals with already high procedure costs, but the changes in price are incredibly important to consider. Hospitals with lower cost changes are better at controlling costs, perhaps due to becoming more efficient at providing the same quality care.

See the full study here.