January 2024 has already delivered yet another year-on-year increase in terms of claims volumes on the same period last year.
This is according to Fiona Booth, head of external affairs and stakeholder engagement at Healthcode who was speaking on the first morning of Health & Protection‘s second annual Health Summit at Tylney Hall in Hampshire this morning.
Booth revealed that while back in 2013 the invoice clearing service processed 3.27m insurance claims worth just under £3bn, there has been an upward trend since that point.
According to Booth, insured claims volumes handled by the service broke through the 10 million barrier in 2023 which was 20% higher than 2022, while unique patient numbers are still increasing.
She further revealed Healthcode processed claims valued at more than £4bn last year and that was consistently £1bn every quarter. Monthly average for claims exceeded 2022 by £6m
Booth said the increase was largely driven by non-hospital episodes of care, three important growth areas in 2023 identified as physiotherapy, mental health and respiratory care.
Meanwhile claims for the top 10 specialties for non-hospital and hospital rose in 2023 compared to 2022, with orthopaedics occupying the top specialty in hospital settings in terms of claims volumes, and physiotherapy the top non-hospital speciality.
“We saw the number of claims surge past the 10 million milestone to 10.2 million which is worth more than £4bn worth of private health activity going through Healthcode last year,” Booth told delegates.
“That’s up 20% from 2022 which represents the biggest year-on-year rise since 2015, if we exclude the anomaly of 2021 after the pandemic.
“It is really too soon to tell whether 2024 will be another record year, but the mood music is certainly positive and from what I saw this morning for January’s figures, it’s another record year for January compared to 23 and 22 and so forth.”