Overall healthcare spending rose 6.3 percent, physician spending rose 5.5 percent and pharmaceutical spending rose 3.4 percent, in a private insurance segment representing about 25 percent of overall healthcare expenditures.
The index, called the Thomson Reuters Healthcare Spending Index for Private Insurance, is the most timely indicator of healthcare inflation available, released about 90 days after the period it measures — in this case, up to the second quarter of 2010.
In the second quarter alone, hospital spending continued to outpace other sectors, rising 1.5 percent compared with 1.2 percent for physicians and 0.8 percent for pharmaceuticals.
Overall, hospital spending has increased more rapidly than the other two segments since 2002, showing a 7.7 percent annualized rate of increase.
Patients’ out-of-pocket spending, another measure surveyed by Thomson Reuters, has also increased more rapidly than total spending since 2002, reflecting increases in deductibles, coinsurance and other payments.
Read the Thomson Reuters release on healthcare spending.
Read the Thomson Reuters Healthcare Spending Index for Private Insurance report (pdf).
Read more coverage of healthcare spending:
– Federal Debt Panel Proposes 20 Major Cuts for Hospitals, Physicians
– Americans Using Less Healthcare, Big Insurers Report
– Growth in Health Spending Smallest in 50 Years
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