Anesthesia Billing & Management

According to the Standard & Poor’s Healthcare Economic Indices, healthcare professionals and hospitals saw accelerated per capita growth in revenue from Medicare and commercial insurers in the past 12 months ending in April. S&P’s healthcare composite index for that 12-month period jumped by 6.14 percent as compared to a 5.65 percent increase for the 12 months ending in March.

Breaking revenue changes down into public and private sources, Medicare fee-for-service revenue for hospitals and healthcare professionals were up by 2.6 percent in the 12 months ending last April. Commercial revenue saw a more dramatic change with an 8.46 percent increase.

“There is a clear upward trend across all annual growth rates, which began around October 2011, and we have now reached close to the top of the range of price changes established over the last few years,” said David Blitzer, index committee chairman for Standard & Poor’s Indices, in a news release. “The April increase in the composite’s annual growth rate was largely driven by a substantial jump in commercial plans.”

According to Standard & Poor’s, one of the primary purposes of their Healthcare Economic Indices is to help medical professionals and the public as a whole better understand the costs associated with healthcare. Over the last 10 years, trends of annual cost increases have varied from mid-single digits to mid-teens.