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These reports, with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, provide a monthly summary of key trends in health care spending, prices, utilization, and employment.

They are related to, but distinct from, the Center for Sustainable Health Spending Health Sector Economic Indicators.

The trend reports make direct use of the Quarterly Services Survey (QSS), the timeliest source of detailed, survey-based spending information for health care services, which account for more than 70% of national health spending.

Each quarter, when new QSS data are released (March, June, September, and December), we will publish an expanded version of this report with a more detailed analysis of health care services trends.

The regular monthly reports will supplement the most recent full quarterly analysis with new data on other aspects of health spending, health care prices and utilization, employment and early indications of the trends for the next quarter.

This report provides a monthly summary of key trends in U.S. health care spending, prices, utilization, and employment. The reports build on Altarum’s Health Sector Economic Indicators SM briefs (HSEI) and make direct use of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Quarterly Services Survey (QSS). When new QSS data are released (March, June, September, December), an expanded version of this report is published. Interim reports highlight noteworthy health sector trends and early indications of results for the next quarter. In this January 2017 report, spending estimates are available through November 2016, while prices and labor are available through December 2016.