Dive Brief:
- First-quarter U.S. Census Bureau data shows healthcare spending growing at a significantly faster rate than anticipated.
- The bureau's Quarterly Services Survey found that healthcare spending increased 7.2% in the first quarter of 2015 compared with the first quarter of 2014.
- Hospitals drove much of that growth, with hospital spending growing 9.2% year-over-year.
Dive Insight:
Health policy expert Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation tweeted that the increase in hospital revenue isn't just due to volumes, which grew only 3.5%. "It's not just volume, it's price/intensity too," Levitt writes.
That's the biggest quarterly increase in hospital spending since data collection began in 2004.
— Larry Levitt (@larry_levitt) June 10, 2015
Among other survey findings:
- Ambulatory healthcare spending grew 5.9% in Q1
- Outpatient facilitiy spending grew 9.4% year over year
- Diagnostic lab spending grew 9.1% year over year
As Modern Healthcare notes, the figures suggest the historically low healthcare spending growth rates of recent years may be in the past.
The industry isn't in agreement on this, however. Pricewaterhouse Coopers' (PwC) Health Research Institute recently released its 10th annual Behind the Numbers report, which projects that U.S. healthcare spending growth will slow down and drop to 6.5% in 2016.