Healthcare spending among those insured through an employer was $6,711 per person in 2022, an increase of 18.7% from 2018, according to a recent report by the Health Care Cost Institute.
The "Health Care Cost and Utilization Report" for 2022 used data from a national, multipayer, commercial healthcare claims database with information from three organizations – Aetna, Humana and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association's Blue Health Intelligence — with more than 1 billion claims per year, representing the yearly healthcare claims of more than 55 million individuals. The full methodology can be found here.
Here are five additional key findings from the report:
1. The average person's healthcare out-of-pocket spending was $866 in 2022. The average out-of-pocket spending in 2018 was $804.
2. The average healthcare spending per person increased by $1,055 — 18.7% — from 2018 to 2022.
3. Overall healthcare prices increased by 14% from 2018 to 2022, and prices increased over all service categories in the same period.
4. Overall healthcare utilization, which includes outpatient, physician and prescription drug categories, grew by 4%; however, average inpatient admissions decreased by 11% from 2018 to 2022.
5. The average point-of-sale prices for prescription drugs increased by 21% from 2018 to 2022. The HCCI notes that rebates likely offset a meaningful amount of this growth.