Medical care ratio (MCR), also known as medical cost ratio, medical loss ratio, and medical benefit ratio, is a metric used in managed health care and health insurance to measure medical costs as a percentage of premium revenues. It is a type of loss ratio, which is a common metric in insurance measuring the percentage of premiums paid out in claims rather than expenses and profit provision. It is calculated by dividing those premiums allocated for fully insured or self-funded health care coverage into the total expenses for inpatient, professional (physicians and other licensed providers), outpatient, and pharmacy. (Briefly, MCR = Costs/Premiums.) As a general rule, a medical cost ratio of 85% or less is desirable. Some insurers now call MCR "benefit cost ratio" (BCR). In the United States, the term is Medical Loss Ratio.
Famous quotes containing the words medical, care and/or ratio:
“Unusual precocity in children, is usually the result of an unhealthy state of the brain; and, in such cases, medical men would now direct, that the wonderful child should be deprived of all books and study, and turned to play or work in the fresh air.”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)
“It is cowardly to fly from natural duties and take up those that suit our taste or temperament better; but it is also unwise to take an exaggerated view of personal duties, which shuts out the proper care of the mind and body entrusted to us.”
—Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)
“Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)