The Best Barometer of Economic Recovery is The Doctors Office
There are many measures of economic activity and recovery but one of the best, yet least used, is the state of retail healthcare. There are two sides to retail healthcare: the physician and pharmacist. People with no jobs or partial employment cut their healthcare spending. Surprisingly, healthcare spending is one of the first expenses people cut regardless of their health state or age, much before consumer discretionary items. Nonsensical but true. So a great place to look for economic recovery is at the amount of bad debt carried by independent physicians and prescription growth. January is a particularly good month to look at this, as most people have insurance deductibles that reset in January. So if you are tight on cash and have to foot your own healthcare bill in January (as your deductible has not yet been met), you are less likely to visit the doctor. The common perception that people must visit the doctor is true to some extent, but if you have been carrying knee pain for 3 months, you may elect to do grin-and-bear-it if you know that the visit will cost you hundreds or thousands out of pocket. So far this winter, things are looking mixed. Bad debt is up 5.5% in some regions and total prescription volume is marginally down.
