News and Insights

National health spending is declining as a share of GDP, health care price growth remains well below economywide inflation, and health employment continues to show moderate growth.

Altarum experts apply their HSEI framework to provide the first comprehensive picture of 2020 health economic data for Virginia—including spending by health components and payers, employment trends, private insurance costs, and federal government support.

In support of up to 150 health centers participating in the initiative, Altarum and partner Arbor Research Collaborative for Health have been awarded a 27-month contract by the HRSA Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC) to provide training, technical assistance, measurement, and evaluation services.

In this month’s Health Sector Economic Indicators briefs, we incorporate new CMS health expenditure data for 2020 and show the impact of federal spending on near-record growth, while healthcare prices rise slightly and 2021's labor trends persist. 

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.

Altarum social psychologist Christine Stanik writes how limited data to inform policy and practice of PACE has hindered wider expansion of the eldercare model. Now a new funding opportunity from AHRQ has opened the door for Altarum to conduct the most thorough analysis of PACE innovations to date.

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.