Measuring price inflation in the physician sector of the health care market

Summary The purpose of this study was to indicate the need for the development of an adequate measure of the inflation in prices of medical care services. Although the CPI provides a medical care component, the index has a number of serious shortcomings. These shortcomings hinder its usefulness for policy purposes. The main thrust of this analysis was to suggest an alternative measure of prices of medical care services. This suggested hedonic approach will produce a more realistic measure of medical care prices for policy purposes.