With child visits to the emergency room declining and the overall use of prescription drugs by children at its lowest in years, it only makes sense that spending on health care for kids would be down. Right?

Not quite.

Despite several encouraging trends uncovered in the Health Care Cost Institute’s (HCCI) new report, the prevailing finding is cause for concern. Spending on health care for children ages 0 to 18 is rising faster than that of the total population ages 0 to 64. The reason? Rising health care prices. HCCI’s report, Children’s Health Spending: 2010-2013, presents the most up-to-date information on health care spending trends for privately insured children under age 19 (about half of U.S. children were privately insured in 2013).

Did you know?

• We’re spending more on boys. In 2013, per capita spending for boys (ages 0 to 18) was almost $300 more than for girls of the same age, $2,716 compared to $2,426.
• Younger children (ages 4-8) had the lowest spending among the privately insured children under 19 – $1,703 per child in 2013.
• The average price of an inpatient admission for a child increased by $744 in one year, hitting $14,685 in 2013. For infants and toddlers (ages 0 to 3), inpatient admissions accounted for about 40 percent of their per capita health care spending.
• Kids are shifting from expensive branded drugs to cheaper generics at a rapid pace. For example, between 2011 and 2013, use of generic prescriptions for medications commonly used to treat asthma and allergies rose by more than 300 percent for babies, more than 700 percent for younger children (ages 4 to 8), more than 800 percent for pre-teens (ages 9 to 13) and more than 500 percent for teenagers (ages 14 to 18). At the same time, use of branded versions of these drugs declined to nearly zero.