Department of Health and Human Services

Preliminary results from the July -- December 2013 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) indicate that the number of American homes with only wireless telephones continues to grow.

Two in every five American homes (41.0%) had only wireless telephones (also known as cellular telephones, cell phones, or mobile phones) during the second half of 2013 -- an increase of 1.6 percentage points since the first half of 2013 and 2.8 percentage points since the second half of 2012.

However, these increases are smaller than those observed in previous years.

This report presents the most up-to-date estimates available from the federal government concerning the size and characteristics of these populations. The 41 percent of households without a landline telephone account for nearly 93 million adults and almost 35 million children across the country. People under 30, houses with several unrelated roommates, poorer residents and Hispanic people were more likely to be relying solely on their cellphones. Nearly 9 percent of American households had only landline service, without wireless access.

As part of the Obama Administration’s work to make our health care system more transparent, affordable, and accountable, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the release of new, privacy-protected data on services and procedures provided to Medicare beneficiaries by physicians and other health care professionals.

The new data also show payment and submitted charges, or bills, for those services and procedures by provider.

“Currently, consumers have limited information about how physicians and other health care professionals practice medicine,” said Secretary Sebelius “This data will help fill that gap by offering insight into the Medicare portion of a physician’s practice. The data afford researchers, policymakers and the public a new window into health care spending and physician practice patterns.”

The new data set has information for over 880,000 distinct health care providers who collectively received $77 billion in Medicare payments in 2012, under the Medicare Part B Fee-For-Service program. With this data, it will be possible to conduct a wide range of analyses that compare 6,000 different types of services and procedures provided, as well as payments received by individual health care providers.

The information also allows comparisons by physician, specialty, location, the types of medical service and procedures delivered, Medicare payment, and submitted charges. Physicians and other health care professionals determine what they will charge for services and procedures provided to patients and these “charges” are the amount the physician or health care professional generally bills for the service or procedure.