For example, State poverty rates may be significantly lower than the national norm. National data also may not reflect influences that are of great local importance, such as the collapse of a particular industry or local laws prohibiting alcohol possession or sales. In some situations, State data were unavailable or were based on too few covered lives to be reliable, making national data, despite the drawbacks, the best available. This usage of the term is different than the typical sense found in chemical dependency treatment, where it means the percentage of capacity of a program that is actually delivering services or occupied by patients. Utilization is computed by dividing the total number of admissions expected from the covered population by the size of the covered population.
Utilization is different for each service in a benefit package.
This service mix varies from State to State, depending on therapeutic traditions and facilities available. Washington's utilization patterns are different from those of the rest of the country, and they probably will remain so after the implementation of health care reform. Washington needed its actuary to use local practices and data to estimate a separate utilization rate for each modality of service in the benefit package. Utilization data are typically derived from historical admission patterns from a known population. Insurance payment records, medicaid records, and medicare records are typical sources.