Center for Financing, Access and Cost Trends (CFACT)
Conducts, supports, and manages studies of the cost and financing of health care, the access to health care services and related trends. CFACT also develops data sets to support policy and behavioral research and analyses.
The Director of CFACT is Dr. Joel Cohen.
The Center for Financing, Access, and Cost Trends (CFACT), formerly known as the Center for Cost and Financing Studies (CCFS), strives to provide health care leaders and policymakers with the information and tools they need to improve decisions on health care financing, access, coverage and cost. Specifically, CFACT:
- Conducts, supports, and manages research and analysis of trends and patterns of health expenditures, public and private insurance coverage, use of personal health services, health status and access to care for the general population and subgroups of policy interest.
- Oversees health sector surveys such as medical expenditure surveys; surveys of medical care providers, employers and other sources of insurance coverage; and surveys of the use, cost, and financing of care for special populations.
- Directs and fosters statistical and methodological research on survey design, sampling and estimation techniques, and data quality.
- Collects, organizes, and analyzes administrative databases related to health care use, health status, cost and financing. Evaluates administrative data sets for intramural and extramural research including policy and methodological studies.
- Provides modeling and projections of health care use, status, expenditures, and payments for policy research.
- Builds research and data collection partnerships with the health care sector, employers and foundations, and represents the Agency in meetings with Federal agencies and experts on health policy issues especially issues related to health expenditures, access, and insurance, Federal and State health care programs.
