Healthcare prices rose 2.2 percent year-over-year in April, the highest growth rate since January 2012, according to Altarum's monthly economic indicators report.
Here are five notes.
1. Annual price growth decreased by 0.1 percent for physician services and hospitals in April. Physician price growth dipped to 0.5 percent, and hospital price growth fell to 3.6 percent.
2. Dental care had the fastest annual price growth, at 4.1 percent. Durable medical equipment had the slowest annual price growth, at -0.3 percent.
3. Year-over-year health spending growth increased to 5.2 percent in March, up from 4.1 percent in May 2017. Growth in the first quarter of 2018 was 5 percent, up 0.4 percent from the fourth quarter of 2017.
4. As of March, national health spending was 18.1 percent of gross domestic product. This rate has remained steady since April 2016.
5. On a 12-month average basis, utilization for physician services increased 4.3 percent.
"It is concerning to see the growth rate in health spending move above 5 percent in the first quarter of 2018," Altarum Fellow Charles Roehrig, PhD, said in a statement. "While this is only a mild acceleration from the 4.6 percent growth in 2017, it comes even as health care coverage has declined."