Healthcare cost pressures have started easing in most of the countries in 2023, as physicians noticed a decline in the number of patients postponing or stopping treatments compared to 2022, according to a survey by  GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

A GlobalData survey* titled “The Impact of Inflation on the Healthcare Sector – Physician Perspective – H1 2023”, reveals that in most of the researched markets in the first half of 2023, physicians noticed a drop in the patients who would postpone or stop procedures or treatments due to rising costs of the healthcare compared to 2022 data. The only exception was the UK—the country that had the highest inflation rate in April 2023 as compared to other researched markets.

Urte Jakimaviciute, Senior Director of Market Research at GlobalData, comments: “When GlobalData launched this survey in 2022, a much higher share of physicians indicated witnessing patients stopping or postponing treatments. 2023 data may suggest that the cost pressures are slowly improving, which may be associated with shrinking inflation rates. While the inflation in the 7MM (US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK, and Japan) is still above the desired target of 2%, the downward inflation trend that has been seen in the majority of the researched markets gives a glimpse of hope that the situation is going to improve further.”

Similarly, as in 2022, US respondents reported the highest increase in patients stopping or postponing treatments, which may be associated with the high costs of healthcare in this market.

Jakimaviciute concludes: “While through the laws like Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the US has started moving towards lowering prescription drug prices, obstacles lie ahead. The law created turmoil in the pharmaceutical sector as pharma’s sales and profits will be negatively affected. To challenge the law, in June 2023, Merck, whose top-selling cancer drug Keytruda could be subject to pricing negotiations, filed a lawsuit against the US government seeking to halt the IRA’s Medicare drug price negotiation program. More impacted pharma companies may follow the same suit.”

* A total of 568 healthcare professionals participated in a survey, which was fielded from January 2023–May 2023.

*358 healthcare professionals were surveyed between September 2022 – January 2023.