Home Health & Hospice Week

Total national healthcare spending in 2018 grew 4.6 percent to $3.6 trillion, according to new data released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. And home care’s share grew faster than that.

“Spending for services provided by free-standing home health care agencies increased 5.2 percent in 2018 … to $102.2 billion,” CMS says in a fact sheet about the National Health Expenditure data. That’s a higher rate than in 2017’s 4.5 percent increase in HH spending.

“Slower growth in Medicaid spending and private health insurance spending was more than offset by faster growth in Medicare and out-of-pocket spending,” CMS says. “Medicare and Medicaid together made up 75 percent of home health spending in 2018.”

In comparison: “Home health spending is still dwarfed by hospital spending, which reached $1.2 trillion in 2018, about one-third of all U.S. health care spending,” notes the National Association for Home Care & Hospice. “In a time of tight budgets, massive growth in hospital spending is not affordable, making the home health alternative an increasingly attractive alternative,” NAHC maintains in its member newsletter.