According to Altarum’s monthly Health Sector Economics Brief, nursing home care in September once again represented one of the fastest-growing categories of national health spending, placing second only to spending on prescription drugs. The spending on nursing home care has increased by 9.8% since September 2022, due to increases in both prices and utilization, as informed by Altarum fellow and Senior Researcher George Miller.

Meanwhile, home care showed the slowest growth rate among major categories of national health spending, increasing just 5.5% in September. Despite the fact that home healthcare prices have been growing at a rate that is among the fastest among the major categories, this growth was attributed to a slight decline in utilization of home healthcare services.

Year-over-year spending growth among the other major healthcare categories, according to the report, 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).

While GDP growth continues to outpace total health spending growth, personal healthcare spending has grown faster than GDP since February 2023 and grew by an impressive 7.4%, year over year, in September according to the brief. Additionally