Nursing Home Care Outpaces National Health Spending in New Report from Altarum

In September, nursing home care emerged as one of the fastest-growing categories of national health spending, outpacing only spending on prescription drugs. A recent report by Altarum found that spending on nursing home care has increased by 9.8% since September 2022. The increase is due to both rising prices and utilization, 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% in September despite the fact that home healthcare prices have been growing at a fast rate among the major categories, with a 4.6% increase year over year. However, the relatively low increase in spending was due to a slight decline in utilization of home healthcare services.

The year-over-year spending growth among other major healthcare categories is as follows: prescription drugs (11.8%), dental care (9.8%), physician and clinical services (8.9%), and hospital care (6.9%). National health spending overall 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.

The report also highlighted that personal healthcare spending, which excludes categories such as the net cost of insurance and public health expenditures, has grown at a rate faster than GDP since February 2023 and grew by 7.4% year over year in September