Nursing home care in September once again placed second only to spending on prescription drugs, with a 9.8% increase in spending since September 2022. This growth was due to both price and utilization increases, according to Altarum fellow and Senior Researcher George Miller. On the other hand, home care showed the slowest growth rate among major categories of national health spending, increasing by just 5.5%, despite the fact that prices for home healthcare services have been growing at a fast rate.
According to Altarum’s monthly Health Sector Economics Brief, year-over-year spending growth among other major healthcare categories are as follows: prescription drugs at 11.8%, dental care at 9.8%, physician and clinical services at 8.9%, and hospital care at 6.9%. National health spending overall has increased by 5.7%, year over year, reaching a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $4.78 trillion, accounting for 17.2% of gross domestic product (GDP). Despite this increase in health spending, the GDP growth rate continues to outpace it, but personal healthcare spending grew faster than GDP since February 2023 and grew by 7.4% in September.
Nursing homes showed modest employment growth in October with an addition of 4,400 jobs while home healthcare added slightly above the monthly average over the past year with a gain of 9,500 jobs in October according to George Miller from Altarum
