Onpoint Releases 2023 Virginia Health Care Spending & Employment Report

January 27, 2025

A new report from Onpoint Health Data – “Tracking Virginia’s 2023 Health Care Spending & Employment Trends” – evaluates critical aspects of Virginia’s health economy and provides actionable insights for policymakers, businesses, and health care stakeholders. The new report examines a series of key metrics, including spending growth, insurance premium, and out-of-pocket spending trends; enrollment patterns; and employment data to offer a comprehensive view of trends through 2023. Onpoint’s report builds upon previous reporting by Altarum while leveraging updated methodologies and an additional year of data to provide the latest insights and perspective.

Key findings in this new report include:

• Total annual personal health care (PHC) spending in Virginia increased from an estimated $83.5 billion in 2022 to $91.9 billion in 2023 – an increase of 10.1%.
• While annual single and family premiums for private health insurance increased by more than 20% between 2019 and 2023 (20.2% and 22.1%, respectively), total PHC spending under private insurance (including hospital and professional care) increased by only 1.2% over the same period.
• Year-over-year PHC spending per capita in Virginia grew from $10,124 in 2022 to $10,625 in 2023 (4.9%). While this rate of growth is similar to average national PHC spending per capita, which grew from $11,199 in 2022 to $11,741 in 2023 (4.8%), Virginia remains well below national per capita health care spending.
• On a per capita basis in 2023, Virginians spent an average of $538 less on hospital services, $259 less on prescription drugs, and $296 less on the combined category of nursing home care, home health care, and other health, residential, and personal care compared to the national average.
• The lower per capita spending in Virginia was most pronounced for those with private health insurance, where per capita spending in the Commonwealth was 32.0% lower than the national average ($4,650 compared to $6,838 nationally). For Medicare, the average in the Commonwealth was 20.6% lower than the national average ($12,459 compared to $15,689 nationally). Medicaid was 17.1% lower than the national average ($7,741 compared to $9,336 nationally).
• While 2023 Virginia PHC spending per capita for those with private health insurance was 32% lower than the national average, private insurance coverage costs were comparable to the national average. This gap has been growing for the past five years.
• Between 2008 and 2023, the average price of annual premiums for a single person increased by 93.8% and family premiums increased by 103.2%, while total PHC spending by private insurance enrollees over the same period grew much more slowly (61.1%).

State-specific analyses like this are invaluable for understanding health care costs, utilization, and labor force trends within a specific state and how they compare to national benchmarks. These analyses highlight disparities in care access and outcomes, empowering policymakers to target areas for improvement, such as addressing gaps in coverage for underserved populations or reducing unnecessary utilization in certain care categories.  

With these insights, state leaders can develop evidence-based strategies to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and enhance overall health system performance, ensuring that resources are allocated where they are most needed to drive meaningful improvements in care delivery.

Following the approach from previous years, Onpoint integrated state-specific National Health Expenditure Accounts (NHEA) data from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Virginia All Payer Claims Database, and other sources to reflect local spending patterns. The analysis also employed advanced modeling techniques and supplemental employment data from the Virginia Department of Health Professions to capture sector-specific dynamics.

Detailed information about this report’s data sources, methodologies, and assumptions are included in the report’s appendix. Read the full report: Tracking Virginia’s 2023 Health Care Spending & Employment Trends

The authors would like to thank the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association for their support of this work. Onpoint also would like to recognize the Virginia Health Information organization for helpful assistance in using the data set provided from the Virginia APCD. We extend our thanks to Altarum for their partnership in leveraging the methodologies used for the historical reporting on these health care trends in Virginia, with previous reports available here.