A Medical Price Prediction System

Abstract

The health care costs constitute a significant fraction of the U.S. economy. Nearly 20% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is spent on health care. The health spending in the US is the highest among all developed nations in absolute numbers as well as a percentage of the economy. The U.S. government bears a large portion of seniors' health expenditure through its Medicare program. The growing health related expenses combined with the fact that the babyboomer generation is retiring, and hence they will be eligible for Medicare, puts a great burden on the U.S. exchequer. Therefore, it is essential to contain health related payments through all means possible. In this work, we will develop a medical price prediction system using machine learning algorithms which will aid in steering patients to cost effective providers and thereby curb health spending. The policymakers can also use the tool to better understand which providers are relatively expensive and take punitive actions if necessary. The prediction of the medical price will be done using implementing Random Forest Regression algorithm in machine learning. Additionally, we plan to include the experiments on the same data with other machine learning models such as Gradient Boosted Trees and Linear Regression and compare results. The findings from these experiments will also be included.

Response of Reed Canary Grass to Salt Stress during Seed Germination and Vegetative Stage

“…Now large-scale use of RCG for energy purposes is carried out in Finland and Sweden, but in other European countries interest has also been shown in the cultivation of RCG [5][6][7][8] . In Finland, ca 1% of the agricultural area is under RCG cultivation [9] . Moreover, the Finnish Ministry of Forestry and Agriculture has set the official goal to increase RCG cultivation five-fold by the year 2015 [10] , which would mean that the RCG area would exceed the recent combined area of potato, turnip rape, rape and sugar beet [9] .…”

“…In Finland, ca 1% of the agricultural area is under RCG cultivation [9] . Moreover, the Finnish Ministry of Forestry and Agriculture has set the official goal to increase RCG cultivation five-fold by the year 2015 [10] , which would mean that the RCG area would exceed the recent combined area of potato, turnip rape, rape and sugar beet [9] . Salinization of soil is a serious problem and is increasing steadily in many parts of the world, in particular in arid and semi arid areas [11] .…”