Home health costs may gain on nursing home costs

U.S. long-term care (LTC) costs are growing faster than the gross domestic product, but slower than the overall national health expenditures.

Andrea Sisko and other Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) analysts have included predictions about home health care and facility care costs in their latest national health expenditures paper.

The analysts are predicting that total health expenditures will increase 5.6 percent this year, to $3.1 trillion, or about $9,600 per person, and that GDP will increase 3.3 percent, to about $54,000 per person. Home health care costs could increase 5.7 percent, to $86 billion, and the cost of care in nursing homes and continuing care retirement communities could rise 3.7 percent, the analysts say.