Medicare Enrollment

December 7, 2011 — The Editors

Medicare Enrollment stats

Today is the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Today is also the final day of the Medicare annual election period. Only one of these topics lends itself to a market size post. Worth noting—and by way of tying these two things together a little—is the fact that anyone (now an American citizen) who was around on the day that Pearl Harbor was attacked, is now eligible for Medicare.

Today’s market size is the number of people enrolled in the Medicare health insurance system in the United States in 2010. The graphic provides data on enrollment from 1970 to 2010 and shows how this population relates to the total U.S. population over this period.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2010
Market size: 47.2 million
Source: “Table I.1 Medicare Enrollment Trends,” part of the statistical offerings on the federal government’s CMS web site here.
Original source: Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S. Department of Human Health and Services
Posted on November 7, 2011

Posted in Health Care, Insurance, National Infrastructure, Population. No Comments »

Veterans Enrolled in the VA

November 11, 2011 — The Editors

Today’s post is about veterans since it is the holiday we have designated for remembering our Veterans of foreigh wars. The Department of Veterans Affairs has since 1999 done an annual survey to help track the number of veterans who are enrolled to receive health benefits through the Veterans Administration (VA). It may surprise some people to discover that a veteran of the U.S. military would even need to enroll in anything to receive VA benefits but things are more complicated as it turns out.

Here is an explanation from the VA on the need to enroll annually for some veterans. “Enrollments are renewed annually and many veterans will stay enrolled each year without any action on their part. Most veterans who are not receiving monthly compensation or pension checks from VA, however, must complete an annual financial statement known as a Means Test. Completing a Means Test allows the VA to place you in the correct Priority Group for determination of copayments. It also ensures that your local VA receives reimbursement from VA for the health care provided to you.”
Link to quoted source.

The market size listed below is the number of U.S. veterans enrolled to receive VA benefits in 2002 and in 2010.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2002 and 2010
Market size: 6.2 million (approximately 25% of the veteran population in 2002) and 7.8 million (approximately 35% of the veteran population in 2010)
Source: “Table 7.1—Perceived Health Status by Year,” 2010 Survey of Veteran
Enrollees’ Health and Reliance Upon VA, July 2011, page 74, available in a PDF format here.
Original source: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
Posted on 11/11/11

Posted in Health Care, Military Services, National Infrastructure. No Comments »

Cancer Diagnoses

October 14, 2011 — The Editors

Today’s market size is one based on a medical diagnosis and thus is really the size of the “customer” base for cancer treatment. Specifically, it is the number of people who were diagnosed with cancer of any type, anywhere in the world, in 2008.

Geographic reference: World
Year: 2008
Market size: 13 million
Source: “Death rates are down in the U.S. But globally the disease is rising,” page 28, National Geographic, October 2011.
Original source: Globocan, International Agency for Research on Cancer
Posted on October 14, 2011

Posted in Health Care. No Comments »

Hospitals

September 20, 2011 — The Editors

Most of us are well aware of the rising costs of health care. It will not comes as a surprise to see that revenues for hospitals in the United States have seen steady increases year-over-year, despite recessions, slow-downs, housing bubbles, financial melt-downs, or any other events that disrupt the economy. This is not to suggest that individual hospitals may not have struggled during our most recent recession, however, as a whole, the hospital industry has seen nothing but rising revenues for well over a decade.

Today’s market size is the revenue earned by hospitals in the United States in 2005 and 2010. Revenues increased over this period by 30.4%, more than twice the rate of inflation during over the same period which was 12.8%. To your health!

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2005 amd 2010
Market size: $620.85 billion and $809.47 billion respectively
Source: Yearbook 2010, “Table 1 – Selected Services, Estimated Quarterly Revenue for Employer Firms,” page 9, Annual Benchmark Report for Services through 2010, a series of reports put out by the Census Bureau in conjunction with their Service Annual Survey, published every non Economic Census year. The table from which today’s market size is taken is available online here.
Original source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. Census Bureau
Posted on September 20, 2011

Posted in Health Care, Hospitals and Clinics. No Comments »

MHealth

September 6, 2011 — The Editors

The term “mHealth” is one being used to help define a category of medical services and devices and a growing part of the health care industry. It stands most simply for mobile health care, more fully “emerging mobile communications and network technology for healthcare.”

This market encompasses the use of mobile techology in the service of providing health care. It includes all those applications which combine body sensors with mobile or static devices designed to monitor a patient’s vital signs or some specific bodily function. The infrastructure behind these devices is also part of the category. An example of such a device is an electrode patch which may be worn by a patient and automatically send the monitoring center information about the patient while he or she is on-the-go. The information is sent by a tiny radio transmitter build into the epidurmal electronic device.

Today’s market size is the estimated size of the market for mHealth products in 2010 and a forecast for the size in 2014. Please note, however, that this market has yet to be well defined and as a result various research firms have come up with widely disparate projections of its size. The source listed below provides a link to an article explaining this problem more fully, titled “mHealth predictions: $1.9B, $4.4B, $4.6B?” Defining the market is key!

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2010 and a forecast for 2014
Market size: $1.5 and $4.6 Billion respectively
Source: “Market Size Projections for mHealth and Wireless Health”, Wireless Health Strategies, March 19, 2010, available online here.
Original source: CSMG, a division of TMBG Global
Posted on September 06, 2011

Posted in Health Care, Hospital Equipment, Information Technology, Medical Devices, Mobile Devices. No Comments »

Veterinary Services

August 30, 2011 — The Editors

A sleepy looking Katie the Beagle

The downturn in the U.S. economy has not spared many but there is always some variation in how such a sharp economic slowdown hits some industries versus others. Veterinarians are among those who often see their base business less impacted than others. While dealing with declining revenues in 2009, veterinary service providers saw a decline of only 0.6% between 2008 and 2009. Of the 27 5-digit NAICS (North American Industrial Classification System) industries in the professional services sector, the veterinary services industry was one of four that saw revenues decline by 0.6% or less between 2008 and 2009. Many other professional service providers saw revenues decline by 15% or more.

Today’s market share is based on the estimated revenues earned by veterinary service providers in the United States in 2009.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2009
Market size: $25.64 billion
Source: “Table 6.1. Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (NAICS 54) – Estimated Revenue for Taxable Firms: 2001 Through 2009,” page 1 and 2 of an extract from Service Annual Survey: 2009, available online here.
Original source: U.S. Bureau of the Census
Posted on August 30, 2011

Posted in Health Care, Pet Care, Professional Services. No Comments »

High-Deductible Health Insurance Plans

July 6, 2011 — The Editors

High-deductible health insurance plans have lower premiums than traditional coverage but the insured pays quite a bit more out-of-pocket before any coverage starts. If the deductibles in such plans are at least $1,200 for individuals and $2,400 for families, the plans can be paired with Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). HSAs allow employees to deposit pretax income to pay for medical expenses. In many cases, employers also contribute to their employees’ HSAs.

Today’s market size shows enrollment for high-deductible health insurance plans with health savings accounts as of January of that year. In 2011, this represented 7% of all health insurance enrollment for people younger than 65.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2008 and 2011
Market size: 6.1 million and 11.4 million respectively
Source: Tom Murphy, “More are Enrolling in High-Deductible Plans,” Lansing State Journal, June 19, 2011, p. 3E
Original Source: America’s Health Insurance Plans

Posted in Health Care, Insurance. 1 Comment »

Cosmetic Surgery

April 28, 2011 — The Editors

In China, even a small percentage of the population can be a very large number. This may explain how, according to the source, China is now the third largest national consumer of cosmetic surgery when calculated by number of procedures performed annually. Today’s market size is the estimated value of cosmetic surgical procedures performed in China last year.

Geographic reference: China
Year: 2010
Market size: $2.3 Billion
Source: LaFraniere, Sharon, “For Many Chinese, New Wealth and a Fresh Face,” The New York Times, April 24, 2011, page 6
Original Source: Chinese Government estimates
Posted on April 28, 2011

Posted in Health Care, Personal Services, Skin Care Products. No Comments »

Digital Prescriptions

April 27, 2011 — The Editors

Approximately one third of all prescriptions written by doctors in Estonia, in January 2010, were digital.

Geographic reference: Estonia
Year: 2010 (January)
Market size: 306,000
Source: “One Third of Prescriptions Written Digitally in Estonia,” February 2, 2010, available online here.

Posted in Drugs, Health Care, Information Technology, Pharmaceutical Industry. No Comments »

Sleep Clinics and Centers

March 24, 2011 — The Editors

Sleep for many is an illusive thing, making life very difficult and for some few the inability to sleep can be so complete that it leads to death. The fatal and extremely rare sleeping disease is called Fatal Familial Insomnia (IFF). Thankfully, for most people suffering from sleep disorders, there are a variety of remedies that may be tried to isolate the cause of the problem and then treat it. This is done, for the most troubled sleepers, in sleep clinics and centers. The market size listed below is an industry estimate of what those clinics and sleep centers will earn in 2011. Another interesting item related to sleep, in 2008, 56 million prescriptions for sleeping pills were written in the United States, representing a sharp increase over the proceeding years.

Wishing you sweet dreams.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2011
Market size: $4.5 Billion
Source: Max D. T., “The Secrets of Sleep,” National Geographic, May 2010, page 81.
Posted on March 24, 2011

Posted in Health Care, Personal Services. No Comments »
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