Prescription drug spending shows fastest growth, overall spending outpaces previous two years, report shows
Prices for outpatient, inpatient, professional services, and prescription drugs increased between 3.5 and 9 percent in 2015, report says.
Spending on healthcare for the privately insured increased 4.6 percent in 2015, outpacing previous years' growth, a new report from the Health Care Cost Institute showed. Spending grew just 3 percent in 2013 and 2.6 percent in 2014.
Prices for outpatient, inpatient, professional services, and prescription drugs increased between 3.5 and 9 percent in 2015, a bigger hike than in the prior two years, according to the analysis. Price increases were the primary reason spending grew more quickly in 2015, and were the largest driver of spending growth throughout the four-year study period.
Spending on prescription drugs grew faster than spending on any other healthcare service. In 2015, $649 per capita was spent on brand prescriptions, an increase of 11.4 percent from 2014, with more dollars going to brand hormones and synthetic substitutes, such as insulin and contraceptives, and to anti-infective drugs, like those used to treat Hepatitis C and HIV. Spending on generic prescriptions reached $313 per person, a 3.3 percent increase from 2014.
[Also: CMS adds consumer transparency on drug spending, shows major spikes in some drug costs]
Spending for Americans younger than 65 and covered by employer sponsored insurance increased to $5,141 per person. Out-of-pocket spending on deductibles, co-pays and coinsurance rose 3 percent, to an average of $813 per capita. People over age 45 spent more than $1,000 out-of-pocket, and women of all ages spent $236 more out-of-pocket than men. Of the 18 states reviewed, the lowest per capita out-of-pocket spending was observed in Washington, D.C. at $636, followed by Maryland at $682, while the highest was observed in Texas at $983.
[Also: Caregiver out-of-pocket spending tops $7k annually]
Use of outpatient care and professional services, such as doctor visits and lab tests, rose slightly. While use of generic prescriptions increased, the use of brand prescriptions declined, resulting in an overall drop in the use of prescriptions. Emergency room visits and common medical and surgical hospital admissions declined during that time, continuing a pattern seen in previous years. The number of office visits to primary care physicians, meanwhile, have fallen each year since 2012. In contrast, office visits to specialists increased over the study period.
For this report, HCCI examined approximately 3.7 billion insurance claims for nearly 40 million Americans covered by employees' state insurance, which accounted for about 26 percent of the nation's privately insured population in 2015.
Twitter: @JELagasse
