Spending By Medical Specialty

We’ve covered what types of diseases people in the US have and what they die from. Now let’s look at how money is spent on addressing those diseases.

It is difficult to find data on healthcare spending by disease or medical specialty. The folks counting the money tend to focus on where the money is spent rather than on whom it is spent, what type of doctor is treating them, or what type of disease they are trying to fight.

The best available data is from Medicare, which covers 95%+ of people in the US over the age of 65. Up until 2020, Medicare published data on how much it spent by medical specialty for outpatient/clinic services (the Part B program). The data for the 10 medical specialities with the most spending is below. Note that this data excludes services provided in hospitals.

The thing that stands out for us in the data is that spending by medical specialty is very diffuse. We have seen that morbidity+mortality - especially in people 65+ - is concentrated in heart disease, cancer, skin conditions, and organ failure. The healthcare spending by medical speciality does not match where the diseases are. Oncology and cardiology at <10% of spending is shocking.