The Health Economics Program at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) requests proposals to conduct an analytic study on low-value health care services in Minnesota (“low-value care”). Low-value care has been defined as “services that provide little or no benefit to patients, have potential to cause harm, incur unnecessary cost to patients, or waste limited healthcare resources” (see Maratt et al., 2019 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31250366/). In the 2023 session, the Minnesota Legislature directed the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) to develop recommendations for strategies to reduce the magnitude of low-value care delivered to Minnesota residents (2023 Minnesota Statutes, 62J.0416, available at: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/62J.0416). To inform these recommendations, MDH is directed to: Review the availability of data and identify gaps in the data infrastructure to estimate low-value care. Based on available data, estimate the volume and change over time of low-value care in Minnesota. Conduct an environmental scan and key informant interviews with experts in health care finance, health economics, health care management or administration, and the administration of health insurance benefits to determine drivers of the provision of low-value care. Within MDH, the Health Economics Program (HEP) is directing these activities...
