News and Insights

In 2020 Americans reduced their use of healthcare services as they postponed elective care and avoided in-person visits, yet new CMS expenditure data show health spending increased by a near-record 9.7%. We explore what drove this.

The program supports states and non-profit organizations as they build integrated maternal and early childhood comprehensive systems of care that are equitable, sustainable, and inclusive of the health system.

Altarum's experts explore how a new Alzheimer’s drug could increase national health expenditures by more than one percent.

The dramatic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic recession on health care utilization, spending, and employment have been well-explored by experts tracking the US health sector. In this blog we summarize some of our recent findings on health sector price growth, using data from our Health Sector Economic Indicators (HSEI) through March 2021, focusing on changes in price trends just before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The rapid decline and subsequent rebound in the use of health care services and associated health spending in the U.S. as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has been well documented. Spending on PHC from September 2020 through February 2021 has averaged nearly 0.5% below the same period the year before, suggesting that the pace of the recovery in spending has stalled, at least temporarily.

Altarum will lead a three-year project to reduce the number of heart attacks and strokes in Michigan by helping rural primary care providers integrate and implement the best available evidence and treatment for hypertension and smoking cessation.

For the first year since at least 1960 – when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) began tracking national health expenditures – total health spending in 2020 was less than in the previous year. 

79% of health care jobs held by men have returned compared to only 62% for women, resulting in  530,000 fewer women employed in health care through October.

National health spending continues its slow recovery, hospitals and nursing home care continue to lead the overall change in health care prices, and 2/3 of health care jobs lost have been regained, but remain at 500K below their pre-COVID-19 level.

HRSA's Maternal and Child Health Bureau has enlisted Altarum in a five-year project to support the Bureau's research and workforce training programs, including grantees from universities and affiliated MCH research, service, and other learning institutions.