Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Very Brief Blog: MEDPAC Releases Annual US & CMS Health Spending Data Book

Every summer, CMS releases a 200-page book on Medicare spending, with a few comparisons to national healthcare spending

It's out.   This year's version is 208 pages and find it here:

https://www.medpac.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/July22_MedPAC_DataBook_SEC.pdf

Analyses are usually through 2020, sometimes through 2019.

Note that this year there's a special section on Laboratory Spending, 2005-2020.  It's just one page (PDF 206, numbered 195).   Lab spending rose from $7B to $B 2005-2012, then dipped in 2014-2016 (and that's before PAMA) in part I think due to bundling of many hospital lab tests to underlying hospital services.  Typically hospital labs are 1/3 per year ($3B out of $9B).  Frankly, the biggest lesson I see for lab spending is that it's been relatively flat from $8.6B in 2010 to $9.2B in 2020.      Figure clipped at bottom.