Quarterly Services Survey Shows Pandemic Had Greater Effect on Some Health Care Services

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020. After that, many doctors in the U.S. delayed elective medical procedures and Medical and Diagnostic Laboratories developed a variety of COVID-19 tests.

Did those changes have uneven economic impacts on health care operations?

They did, according to an analysis of the Census Bureau’s Quarterly Services Survey (QSS) data on doctor visits, lab and diagnostic testing, and hospital visits.

The data show that some health care industries that normally follow similar economic patterns diverged in some quarters during the pandemic.

All revenue data contained in this article are seasonally adjusted, but hospital inpatient days and discharges data are not.

The data show that some health care industries that normally follow similar economic patterns diverged in some quarters during the pandemic.

For example, before the pandemic, visiting the doctor and getting lab tests were commonly linked (Figure 1). But during the pandemic, lab testing surged higher than visits to doctors’ offices — a shift known as divergence.

While the revenue of both Offices of Physicians and Medical and Diagnostic Laboratories fell significantly in the second quarter of 2020 — down 14.9% and 10.9% respectively from the first quarter of 2020 — there was some divergence afterward.

In the third quarter of 2020, revenue for Medical and Diagnostic Laboratories increased 41.1% from the previous quarter. Nationwide COVID-19 testing was a central factor.

Revenue for the Offices of Physicians also rebounded in the third quarter of 2020, but the 12.6% quarter-to-quarter change was not as pronounced as the increase for Medical and Diagnostic Laboratories.

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