Dive Brief:
- A Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) report shows increasing prices drove growth in children's healthcare spending in 2014, even though there was a drop in children's use of medical care during the same year.
- Out-of-pocket spending on children's healthcare rose 5.5% annually to $472 in 2014 due to higher spending for ER visits. Employer-sponsored insurance spending on children's healthcare increased 5.1% annually, reaching $2,660 in 2014.
- The report, which was released yesterday, looked at children's healthcare spending trends at the state level and found Arizona had the lowest per capita spending of $2,151 per child while Wisconsin had the highest spending of $3,017 per capita.
Dive Insight:
According to HCCI, the District of Columbia had the highest number of ER visits compared to the nine states analyzed - Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
There were several additional key study findings:
- The average price per filled day more than doubled for brand prescriptions between 2010 and 2014 - from $7 to $16 per day.
- Surgical admissions price saw more than a 50% increase from $35,423 to $53,372 in 2014.
- The average ER visit price jumped $298 between 2010 and 2014, but the number of ER visits dropped from 181 in 2010 to 177 per 1,000 children in 2014.
In addition, doctor visits ranked as the most widely used medical services for children, and accounted for 12% of total per capita spending in 2014 at $339 per child.
The report data is based on fee-for-service claims for 10.2 million children under age 19 per year covered by employer-sponsored insurance (ESI).
Nearly half of American children were covered by ESI in 2014, HCCI reported.