News and Insights

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.

A new survey of nursing home residents by Altarum provides a rare glimpse into how Covid-19 restrictions of nursing facilities have impacted nearly every aspect of resident life and led to the unintended consequence of drastically reducing frail elders’ connection to community and family, a fundamental human need.  

This survey of nursing home residents provides a rare glimpse into how life has changed under Covid-19, and the emotional toll it has taken on frail elders. It also includes recommendations for nursing homes and policymakers.

With yesterday’s release of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) data for the second quarter of 2020, dire economic anxieties were confirmed as we saw the worst reading in the series’ history (which goes back to 1947): a drop of 32.9% at a seasonally adjusted annual rate.