Dental spending growth slower

By | January 21, 2015

According to ADA News, government actuaries cited slower growth in dental spending than projected just three months earlier in a study revising the post-recession National Health Expenditures narrative from “low rates of growth” to “slowdown.”

Annual growth of dental servicesThe 3.6 percent increase in the 2013 rate of growth in the overall health economy is the lowest on record since NHE record keeping began in 1960, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Office of the Actuary said.

CMS actuaries in a September 2014 report had projected that 2013 dental spending would total $113 billion at a 1.9 percent annual growth rate. The study published in December 2014 by the journal Health Affairs said actual dental spending increased by just 0.9 percent to $111 billion.

Dental services spendingDental spending and the annual growth rate had been inching upward since 2009 when it increased minimally from $102.4 billion to $102.5 billion or 0.1 percent over 2008. The 2013 growth rate is the lowest since then.

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