April 26, 2023 – The COVID-19 pandemic caused a decline in healthcare spending in 2020, but new data shows that expenditures rose in the following year. A new report from the Health Care Cost Institute shows the dramatic dip in 2020, as well as the increase in spending in 2021.
This report found that average annual health care spending for people with employer-sponsored insurance spending increased to $6,467 in 2021 from $5,630 in 2020. Per person health care spending increased 15% in 2021, following a 4% decrease in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a media release, HCCI president and CEO Katie Martin said, “In 2021, we see a full rebound in per person health care spending – an apparent continuation of pre-pandemic trends. While we see the continued effects of COVID, it seems the pandemic’s disruption of historical health care spending will not have a lasting effect and that the work to rein in high and growing health care costs continues.”
Other key findings of the HCCUR include:
- Prices increased every year from 2017 to 2021. Average prices were 13.9% higher in 2021 than they were in 2017.
- Use of telehealth continued to increase in 2021 after its dramatic rise in 2020.
- Average out-of-pocket spending increased by more than 13% or $100 from 2020 to 2021, returning to pre pandemic levels.
- There was growth in spending on several services that are likely related, at least in part, to care associated with COVID-19, including respiratory hospital admissions, lab tests, and vaccines.