Health spending in March was 12.5% higher than it was the same month in 2020, according to new data that show a major rebound from a drop caused by the pandemic.
A report released Wednesday by the Altarum Institute found that the drop and recovery in spending varied across different categories, as home health saw a major gain in spending.
“While spending in each of these categories has recovered somewhat from the effects of the pandemic, only home health care and hospital spending were greater in March 2021 than in January 2020,” the report said.
It found that hospital and home health care were the only categories to see an increase in spending.
The report found that spending on hospital care in March was up 2% compared to the level in January 2020, a major boost compared to the decline in spending of nearly 40% in April 2020 when the effects of the pandemic took hold. Hospitals were forced to pause elective procedures and surgeries to preserve capacity to fight the virus and patient volumes also plummeted as people were afraid of going to the hospital.
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Spending on home health care grew 7% compared to the baseline level in January 2020.
While some categories have recovered from the major decline in spending others remain down.
For instance, dental service spending declined by more than 60% in April 2020 as the pandemic forced dentist offices to close down. Spending, however, remains down by 17% compared to the level in January 2020.
The data is based on information from the Bureau of Economic Analysis National Income and Product Accounts. Other data on insurance and public health spending come from projections made by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
CMS projected in December 2020 that healthcare spending increased 4.6% in 2019 to $3.8 trillion. CMS is still looking to explore the consequences of the pandemic on spending in 2020.