Hospital drug expenses grew 13.6% in 2025, nearly twice as fast as total expenses
Growth in US hospital expenses in 2025, by category, as AHA reports it from Strata Decision Technology benchmark data
Show the numbers as a table
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Drug expenses | 13.6% |
| Supply spending | 9.9% |
| Total expenses | 7.5% |
| Workforce costs | 5.6% |
About the data
- Source
- American Hospital Association, Costs of Caring 2026 (March 2026) (opens in a new tab)Page 2 (total expenses 7.5%), page 4 (workforce costs 5.6%), page 5 (supplies 9.9%), page 6 (drug expenses 13.6%)
- Method
- AHA reports each growth rate from Strata Decision Technology's industry benchmark data for 2025. AHA describes the supply figure as growth in total spending on supplies through 2025. The four bars are the categories AHA states as numbers in the text of the report.
- Published
Free to share and embed with credit to Kent Applied (CC BY 4.0). The source data keeps its own terms.
A fact from this chart
Sources for the figures above: American Hospital Association, Costs of Caring 2026 (March 2026) (opens in a new tab).
Related charts
- From the blog
A boarded med-surg stroke patient cost nearly twice as much a day as one on a ward
Canellas et al., Annals of Emergency Medicine, vol. 84 (2024) - From the blog
Hopkins assigned ED patients a bed 30% faster after opening a command center
Johns Hopkins Medicine, Capacity Command Center news release (October 2016) - From the blog
Length of stay rose most for patients going to psychiatric hospitals or skilled nursing
American Hospital Association, Increasing Delays in Timely Discharges issue brief (December 2022) - From the blog
Finding a place that would take the patient caused the most discharge delay days
HANYS, The scope of complex case discharge delays in New York state (2023)
Sources for the figures above: Canellas MM et al., Measurement of Cost of Boarding in the Emergency Department Using Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing, Annals of Emergency Medicine 84(4) (opens in a new tab); The Johns Hopkins Hospital Launches Capacity Command Center to Enhance Hospital Operations (news release) (opens in a new tab); American Hospital Association, Increasing Delays in Timely Discharges issue brief (December 2022) (opens in a new tab); HANYS, The scope of complex case discharge delays in New York state (2023) (opens in a new tab).
Book a 20-minute call
Tyler Kent can measure a question like this one in your own data. Start with a short call.
Prefer to skip the call? Get a written proposal
Or email tyler@kentapplied.com.