Year-over-year health spending growth highest ‘by far’ for home healthcare

Year-over-year health spending growth highest ‘by far’ for home healthcare 
McKnights Senior Living; by Lois A. Bowers; 7/28/24 
Year-over-year growth in national health spending in June was highest “by far” for home healthcare, at 20.9%, compared with other major healthcare categories, according to a brief issued late Tuesday by Altarum. Most of the growth, 18.5 percentage points, was due to changes in utilization rather than price, George Miller, PhD, Altarum fellow and research team leader, told the McKnight’s Business Daily. “Nursing home care spending was a distant second, at 10.0% year-over-year growth,” Miller said. By comparison, year-over-year spending growth was 8.3% for prescription drugs, 8.2% for hospital care, 7.3% for dental services and 6.6% for physician and clinical services, according to the report. Overall, spending on healthcare goods and services grew by 8.1% between June 2023 and June 2024, with utilization growth continuing to outpace price growth.