Beginning in January 2010, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) introduced new CPI medical care commodities for which inflation indexes are published and discontinued others.
| Prior to January 2010, the medical care CPI commodity codes were: | |
|---|---|
| SAMI | Medical Care Commodities |
| SEMB | Prescription Drugs |
| SEMB | Nonprescription Drugs and medical supplies |
| SEMB01 | Internal and Respiratory over-the-counter supplies |
| SEMB02 | Nonprescription medical equipment and supplies |
| Beginning January 2010, the updated medical care CPI commodity codes are: | |
|---|---|
| SAMI | Medical Care Commodities |
| SEMF | Medicinal drugs |
| SEMF01 | Prescription drugs |
| SEMF02 | Nonprescription drugs |
| SEMG | Medical equipment and supplies |
The new series SEMF01 Prescription drugs commodity is a continuation of the old series SEMA Prescription drugs commodity code; only the commodity code has changed to SEMF01. SEMF02 Nonprescription drugs and SEMG Medical equipment and supplies are new commodity codes which means that the indexes published for these are not a continuation of old series code indexes. SEMF Medicinal drugs which is a less detailed category which includes both the SEMF01 and SEMF02 codes is also a new commodity code for which the base period is December 2009 and the December 2009 index for each of these new commodity codes is 100.000.
The goods included by the old SEMB01 Internal & respiratory over-the-counter drugs are virtually the same as the goods included in the new SEMF02 Nonprescription drugs commodity code. The goods included by the old SEMB02 Nonprescription medical equipment & supplies are virtually the same as the goods included in the new SEMG Medical equipment & supplies commodity code. There is no old series less detailed commodity code that corresponds to the new SEMF Medicinal drugs code.
Although the 2010 CPI index files used by our LIFO-PRO software include indexes for the new CPI commodity codes described above, there will not be a full year’s CPI inflation for the SEMF, SEMF02 and SEMG commodity codes until December 2010 since the first index published for these commodity codes was in December 2009. To address this situation and to provide a means for the LIFO-PRO software users to calculate a full year’s CPI inflation for medical care commodities for appropriate CPI months between December 2009 and December 2010, we have included in the 2010 CPI index file (indx2010.cpi) used by the LIFO-PRO software 2010 indexes which are continuations of these old series CPI commodity codes: SEMB01 Internal & respiratory over-the-counter drugs, SEMB02 Nonprescription medical equipment & supplies and the indexes for the less detailed SEMB Nonprescription drugs & medical supplies CPI commodity code which subsumes the SEMB01 & SEMB02 commodity codes.
Click on the link below to view the spreadsheet which shows the steps used to calculate the pre-2010 CPI medical care commodity indexes described above:
Pre-2010 CPI Medical Care Index Calculation Steps
LIFO-PRO updates this page as new CPI Category Changes are released by the BLS.
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