Hospital costs are measured in several ways: national hospital spending, prices charged for services, public and private payment, and what patients and households ultimately spend. In the United States, hospital expenditures reached $1,634.7 billion in 2024, while hospital care represented 31% of national health expenditures. The figures below distinguish spending totals, annual growth, utilization, and household concentration across their stated measurement periods.
Table of contents
- National hospital spending
- Who pays for hospital care
- Hospital price inflation
- Medicare inpatient and outpatient costs
- Hospital capacity, margins, and access
- How healthcare costs are concentrated
- Heart-disease treatment costs
National hospital spending
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reported $1,634.7 billion in U.S. hospital expenditures in 2024. Hospital expenditures increased 8.9% that year, compared with 10.6% growth in 2023. These are national expenditure measures, not the price of an individual hospital stay. (CMS, NHE Fact Sheet)
CMS’s 2024 highlights describe hospital care spending as approximately $1.5 trillion in 2023. Hospital care spending grew 10.4% in 2023, the fastest increase since 1990, when hospital spending growth was 10.8%. The difference between the rounded 2023 description and the more precise 2024 expenditure figure reflects different reporting years and presentation conventions; they should not be treated as the same annual total. (CMS, National Health Expenditures 2024 Highlights)
Hospital care represented 31% of all U.S. national health expenditures in 2024. CMS also reported hospital-care price growth of 3.4% in 2024, the highest rate since 2007, compared with 2.7% in 2023. Spending growth therefore reflects more than price changes alone; the supplied national figures do not provide a single decomposition of volume, intensity, and price for each year. (CMS, National Health Expenditures 2024 Highlights)
| Measure | Value | Period |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. hospital expenditures | $1,634.7 billion | 2024 |
| Hospital expenditure growth | 8.9% | 2024 |
| Hospital expenditure growth | 10.6% | 2023 |
| Hospital care share of national health expenditures | 31% | 2024 |
| Hospital-care price growth | 3.4% | 2024 |
Who pays for hospital care
Hospital-care spending growth differed by payer in 2024. Private health insurance spending on hospital care grew 10.4%, Medicare spending grew 6.9%, and Medicaid spending grew 8.5%. Other private revenues connected to hospital care increased 20.5%. These are growth rates for hospital care by financing category, not patient-specific bills. (CMS, National Health Expenditures 2024 Highlights)
CMS’s broader national expenditure accounts show the scale of several financing categories in 2024. Private health insurance accounted for $1,644.6 billion, or 31% of total national health expenditures. Medicare accounted for $1,118.0 billion, or 21%, and Medicaid accounted for $931.7 billion, or 18%. Out-of-pocket healthcare spending totaled $556.6 billion, or 11%.
The sponsoring perspective gives another view of the same healthcare system. The federal government sponsored $1.7 trillion, or 31%, of U.S. healthcare spending in 2024. Households sponsored $1.5 trillion, or 28%, while private businesses sponsored $967.4 billion, or 18%. Sponsorship totals are not limited to hospital bills, so they should not be added together with hospital expenditures as if they were separate hospital-cost categories. (CMS, NHE Fact Sheet; CMS, National Health Expenditures 2024 Highlights)
Hospital price inflation
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) measured hospital price changes in U.S. cities from August 2025 to August 2026. The hospital-and-related-services Consumer Price Index rose 5.5% over that 12-month period. Within that category, the hospital-services CPI rose 5.2%, while the outpatient-hospital-services CPI rose 5.4%. (BLS, CPI-U detailed expenditure categories)
The shorter month-to-month changes were smaller. From July to August 2026, hospital-and-related-services prices increased 0.1% on a seasonally adjusted basis. Hospital-services prices increased 0.0%, and outpatient-hospital-services prices increased 0.1%. A 12-month change and a one-month change describe different intervals, so the monthly figures do not replace the annual comparison.
Hospital and related services had a 2.618% relative-importance weight in the August 2026 CPI-U. Hospital services alone had a 2.168% weight. These weights indicate the category’s role in the overall urban-consumer price index; they are not a hospital markup, an average bill, or a patient cost share. (BLS, CPI-U detailed expenditure categories)
Medicare inpatient and outpatient costs
MedPAC counted 3,095 IPPS hospitals serving fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare in 2024. The IPPS population included 4.2 million FFS Medicare users, and those hospitals provided 6.5 million FFS Medicare inpatient stays. IPPS payments for services totaled $104.6 billion, with another $5.9 billion paid for uncompensated care. (MedPAC, Hospital use and spending under FFS Medicare, 2024)
The outpatient picture was larger in encounters but lower in the reported payment total. MedPAC counted 3,060 OPPS hospitals serving FFS Medicare in 2024. The OPPS population included 15.8 million FFS Medicare users and recorded 64.7 million FFS Medicare encounters. OPPS payments for services totaled $52.4 billion, and separately payable items accounted for $22.0 billion.
Among FFS Medicare beneficiaries, inpatient stays were 208 per 1,000 beneficiaries in 2024, up 1.5% from 2023. Hospital outpatient encounters averaged 3.0 per beneficiary, up 4.0% from 2023. These utilization measures describe FFS Medicare activity and should not be generalized to all patients or all insurance types.
Hospital capacity, margins, and access
The hospitals in MedPAC’s capacity analysis had 674,000 inpatient beds in fiscal year 2024. The inpatient-bed occupancy rate was 71%. The median emergency-department time from arrival to departure was 150 minutes. Together, these measures describe capacity and patient flow, not a direct price for an admission or emergency visit. (MedPAC, Hospital use and spending under FFS Medicare, 2024)
Hospital employment reached 4.8 million employees in fiscal year 2024, up from 4.6 million in 2023. MedPAC also reported eight more hospital closures than openings in both fiscal years 2024 and 2025, citing low volume and high operating costs as common reasons. The closure comparison spans two fiscal years and is not a forecast of future closures.
The all-payer hospital operating margin was 6.5% in fiscal year 2024. By contrast, the aggregate FFS Medicare hospital margin excluding relief funds was -12.1%. The two margins use different payer scopes, so the figures should be read as distinct measures rather than as a contradiction or a direct subtraction.
How healthcare costs are concentrated
A 2022 analysis of the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population found that the top 1% of people ranked by healthcare expenditures accounted for 21.7% of total healthcare expenditures. The top 5% accounted for 49.7%, while the bottom 50% accounted for 2.8%. These results describe total healthcare expenditures, not hospital-only spending. (AHRQ MEPS, Concentration of Healthcare Expenditures)
People in the top 1% expenditure tier averaged $147,071 in annual healthcare expenditures in 2022. The threshold for entering that tier was $80,990 or more. The threshold for the top 5% was $30,206 or more. Thresholds identify expenditure tiers; they do not mean that every person in a tier had the same hospital use or insurance coverage.
In the top 5% expenditure tier, inpatient stays represented 27.9% of expenses in 2022. In the bottom 50% tier, inpatient stays represented 0.1% of expenses. Out-of-pocket payments represented 8.0% of expenses for the top 5% tier. The analysis does not establish that hospital care caused every difference between the tiers, but it shows how strongly healthcare spending is concentrated among people with the highest annual expenditures.
Heart-disease treatment costs
Heart-disease treatment provides a condition-specific view of hospital costs. For U.S. adults with diagnosed and treated heart disease, total treatment expenditures reached $100.0 billion in 2022. Average annual heart-disease treatment expenditure was $4,900 per adult in that population. These estimates cover treatment expenditures among adults and are not an average price for one hospital admission. (AHRQ MEPS, Healthcare Expenditures for Heart Disease)
Hospital inpatient stays accounted for 46.1% of heart-disease treatment expenses in 2022. Among adults hospitalized for heart disease, the average cost of a hospital inpatient stay was $21,560, while the median cost was $13,370. The difference between the average and median indicates that the distribution was not summarized by a single typical value; the source reports both measures and does not treat the average as the experience of every patient.
Hospital outpatient visits accounted for 11.3% of heart-disease treatment expenses, and emergency-department visits accounted for 3.1%. These shares are components of heart-disease treatment expenses for 2022, not shares of all U.S. hospital spending. Measurement year, population definition, and service setting matter when comparing these figures with national totals or Medicare payment measures.