Medicaid nursing home reimbursement policies, rates, and expenditures

Nursing home expenditures, along with those of hospitals, have been a target of cost containment efforts because they constitute a growing share of overall public expenditures for health. Of the total $287 billion spent on personal health care in 1982, $27 billion (9.5 percent) was spent on nursing home care (Gibson, Waldo, and Levit, 1983). Nationally, nursing home expenditures increased at a rate of 17.4 percent between 1980 and 1981 and 12.9 percent between 1981 and 1982, more rapidly than overall health care expenditures (Gibson, Waldo, and Levit, 1983).