Category Archives: Health Sector Economic Indicators (HSEI)

November 2022 Health Sector Economic Indicators Briefs

Posted on by • Posted in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Health Care Job Growth, Health Care Price Growth, Health Care Price Index (HCPI), Health Sector Economic Indicators (HSEI), Health Spending Growth, Healthcare Economics, Healthcare Price Index, Healthcare Sector, Healthcare Spending • Leave a comment

https://altarum.org/publications/november-2022-health-sector-economic-indicators-briefs

Economic Indicators | November 18, 2022

Altarum’s monthly Health Sector Economic Indicators (HSEI) briefs analyze the most recent data available on health sector spending, prices, employment, and utilization. Support for this work is provided by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Below are highlights from the November 2022 briefs.

Health spending growth continues to lag GDP growth

  • National health spending in September 2022 grew by 4.4%, year over year.
  • Health spending in September 2022 is estimated to account for 17.4% of GDP, essentially identical to the August 2022 value, which was the lowest share since June 2015.
  • Nominal GDP in September 2022 was 8.9% higher than in September 2021 as GDP growth continues to outpace health spending growth.
  • The health spending share of GDP has declined from a recent high of 18.5% of GDP in December 2021, largely because of high economy-wide inflation.

​Health care price growth remains moderate amid slowing economywide inflation

  • The Health Care Price Index (HCPI) increased by 2.9% year over year in October, up slightly from 2.8% a month earlier. 
  • Economywide price growth slowed this month, as overall CPI inflation fell to 7.7% and PPI price growth fell to 8.0%. Services CPI growth (excluding health care) held steady at 7.0% year over year, while commodities inflation fell for a fourth straight month to 8.6%.
  • Among the major health care categories, price growth for dental care (5.4%), nursing home care (4.2%), and hospital services (3.5%) were above average, while physician services (0.3%) and prescription drug (2.2%) price growth were the slowest growing categories.
  • Growth in our implicit measure of utilization for September was the slowest it has been in 2022, down to 1.8% year-over-year growth from 2.2% a month prior in August.

Health care job growth remains strong while health care wage growth moderates

  • Health care job growth remained strong in October, with 52,600 jobs added. Health care has averaged 47,000 new jobs per month in 2022.
  • Most of the growth in health care jobs was in ambulatory care, which added 30,700 jobs in October. Hospitals added 10,800 jobs and nursing and residential care added 11,100 jobs.
  • The economy added 261,000 jobs in October, similar to August and September gains. The unemployment rate rose slightly to 3.7%.
  • Health care wage growth appears to be moderating. After peaking at 7.4% growth year over year in July, health care wages grew by 5.6% in September, nearer to economy-wide wage growth of 5.0%.
  • Wage growth fell across all three major health care settings: residential care wages grew at 7.7% compared to a peak of 11% in March 2022, hospital wages grew by 5.8% compared to a peak of 8.5% in June, and ambulatory care wages grew by 4.6% compared to a peak of 5.8% in July.

June 2021 Health Sector Economic Indicator Briefs

Posted on by • Posted in Health Care Price Index (HCPI), Health Sector Economic Indicators (HSEI), Job Loss, Job Market, Market Trends, National Healthcare Spending, Unemployment • Leave a comment

https://altarum.org/publications/june-2021-health-sector-economic-indicator-briefs

Altarum

Economic Indicators | June 17, 2021

Altarum’s monthly Health Sector Economic Indicators (HSEI) briefs analyze the most recent data available on health sector spending, prices, employment, and utilization. Support for this work is provided by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Below are highlights from the June 2021 briefs

National health spending growth reflects rebound from COVID-19

  • National health spending in April 2021 was 32.4% higher than in April 2020, reflecting the recovery from the lowest month in spending since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Since January 2020, before the pandemic-induced drop began, net growth in national health spending was 1.5% through April 2021.
  • The magnitude of the drop and subsequent recovery has varied by category of spending, with only spending on home health care, prescription drugs, and hospital care reaching levels in April 2021 that exceeded their January 2020 levels.
  • The recovery in spending on dental services continues to lag all other categories, remaining 14.6% below its January 2020 level.

Health care price growth remains stable amid economywide inflation

  • Growth in the overall Health Care Price Index (HCPI) remained mostly steady in May, with prices 2.0% higher than they were a year ago, compared to the 1.9% growth seen in April. The 2.0% rate is below the average since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, indicating a slight moderation in health care prices.
  • Hospital and physician services prices continue to be the two fastest growing major categories, increasing 3.6% and 3.1% year over year respectively, while nursing home facility and home health care price growth has slowed significantly over the past few months, now up only 2.1% and 1.5% respectively in May.
  • Outside of health care, economywide price growth, as measured by both the consumer price index (CPI) and producer price index (PPI), continued to accelerate, with those measures increasing to 5.0% and 6.6% growth in May. This is the fastest growth for economywide CPI since 2008 and the fastest ever in the series for PPI.
  • As expected, the GDP Deflator (GDPD), which lags a month behind other price data, was significantly higher in April at 3.7%, marking the first time it exceeded health care price growth since September 2019.

Health employment up modestly in May, returning to the December 2020 level

  • Health care added a modest 22,500 jobs in May, mostly in ambulatory care settings. Revisions to March and April took health care jobs up slightly but did not significantly change the story.
  • Health care employment has slowly regained the 80,000 jobs dropped in January 2021 and is now at the level it was at the end of 2020 (15.98 million jobs). The sector remains about 500,000 jobs, or 3.1%, below where it was in February 2020, with a big part of the drop in residential care settings. Additionally, neither hospitals nor ambulatory settings (as a whole) are fully back to pre-pandemic employment.
  • After dropping 35,000 jobs in January 2021, hospital employment has been little changed, with job losses and gains of a few thousand jobs per month in February through May 2021. Hospital employment is 28,000 jobs below where it stood at the end of 2020 and 90,000 jobs, or 1.7%, below the pre-pandemic peak.
  • Nursing and residential care employment continued to fall in May, losing 2,400 jobs. Residential care settings are down 340,000 jobs, or 12.7%, since February 2020, losing jobs in all but one month over that period.
  • The economy added 559,000 jobs and the unemployment rate fell to 5.8%. We have added 2.4 million jobs so far in 2021 but remain 7.6 million jobs (5%) below the level of employment in February 2020.