Home health care and nursing home care were the fastest growing healthcare categories in August, an Oct. 19 Altarum report found.
Altarum, a nonprofit, healthcare-focused research and consulting organization, works with federal and state health agencies to analyze available data on spending, prices, employment and utilization to craft its monthly Health Sector Economic Indicators brief.
In August, the national health spending grew by 5.4%, year over year. Price growth for Medicaid patients grew 4.2% in September and had higher growth than private insurance prices (2.9%) and Medicare patients (1.5%).
Here are five other notes:
- Among major healthcare categories, prices for home healthcare and nursing homes had the fastest growth at 6.1% and 5.1%, respectively.
- Nursing and residential care facilities added 8,200 jobs in September with the most substantial growth in residential care settings.
- Healthcare wage growth in August was 3.4% year over year, only slightly lower than total private sector wage growth, which was 4.3%.
- Wage growth was highest in nursing and residential care at 4.3% in August.
- Spending on home health care increased as least 5% among major categories.