National Healthcare Expenditure Data Issued for 2022: What Does It All Mean?
One of my Christmas traditions is to write about the release of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Actuary’s National Healthcare Expenditure Data (NHED) for a given calendar year. This usually is released in the first half of December each year for the prior year. It literally takes CMS about a year to capture, calculate and categorize all the data for a year given the size and labyrinthine complexity of our healthcare system. Each year as well, usually in the first half of June, the CMS Actuary updates healthcare spending projections for ten outyears. Why is this so important? First, it is the main comprehensive source of data for calculating the history and future of healthcare spending. Most other studies rely on the CMS Actuary’s NHED reports in some way. Second, it is a treasure trove of data that helps explain the inner workings of the healthcare system.
