According to analysis, the average cost of healthcare service covered by insurance and Medicare programs increased by nearly 6 percent over the last 12 months. It’s the fourth consecutive increase noted by the S&P Healthcare Composite Index. The survey also monitors healthcare costs not covered by insurance and found that those prices increased by nearly eight percent over the last year. Medicare claim costs hit a new low, raising at an annual rate of just over two percent.

Indexes monitoring hospital and professional services saw only small increases. “As the summer of 2011 ended, we continued to observe the recent trend of a deceleration in the annual growth rates of Medicare costs and a sustained acceleration in the annual rates of commercial healthcare costs,” David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Indices said in a news release. “The Composite Index posted an annual rate of +5.73%, the Commercial Index +7.89% and the Medicare Index +2.16%. With this month’s data, the Medicare index is almost one-fourth of its peak annual rate of +8.02% recorded in November 2009.  This is a very sharp deceleration.”

The S&P Healthcare Economic Indices determine annual growth rates by calculating a percentage change over a 12-month period, examining increases and decreases each month. “If you further separate commercial plans’ costs into their hospital and professional services components, you can see that the August 2011 commercial hospital index is above the rate it posted at the beginning of the year – specifically +9.05% in August versus +8.68% in January,” explains Blitzer. “In contrast, the commercial professional services index has decreased to +6.68% from its +7.25% January growth rate. The increasing growth rate for hospitals is primarily due to rising rates of employment and wages. Professional services wages have also seen increasing rates during 2011; however, employment trends have declined over the same period.”