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Dave Lassman/
Erika McDonald
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         Revenue for Health Care and Social Assistance
            Up 4 Percent, Census Bureau Reports
                                
  The Commerce Department's Census Bureau reported today that revenues for
the nation's health care and social assistance industries increased 
by 4 percent between 1998 and 1999, from $964 billion to $1.01 trillion.

  The tabulations for both employer and nonemployer firms, released on the
Internet, show revenues for physicians' offices increased 5 percent, to
$202 billion; dentists' offices, 6 percent, to $56 billion; and hospitals,
4 percent, to $413 billion.

  The overwhelming majority -- 97 percent, or $971 billion -- of health 
service revenues in 1999 were recorded by firms with paid employees
(employer firms). These firms reported $932 billion in revenues in 1998.

  For employer firms, the major sources of payments to physicians' offices
in 1999 were:

  -- Private insurance: $90 billion or 47 percent of total employer
     revenue.
  -- Medicare: $45 billion or nearly a quarter of the total.
  -- Patient "out-of-pocket" payments: $21 billion or 11 percent.
  -- Medicaid: $13 billion or 7 percent.

  Major sources of payments to hospitals were:

  -- Private insurance payments: $143 billion or 35 percent of total
     employer revenue.
  -- Medicare: $134 billion or nearly one third of the total.
  -- Medicaid: $50 billion or 12 percent.

  The health care and social assistance estimates are part of the 
1999 Service Annual Survey report. The health services sector includes
revenues for ambulatory health-care services, hospitals, nursing and
residential care facilities, and social assistance. The tables also show
separate taxable and tax-exempt estimates for selected
industries. Subsequent reports from the survey will cover the information
sector, selected financial industries, and trucking and warehousing.

  This is the first year the Service Annual Survey report has been
published using the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS).

  The data are subject to sampling variability and nonsampling errors.
Sources of nonsampling error include errors of response, nonreporting and
coverage. Measures of sampling variability, presented as relative standard
errors, are shown in the tables.