The Altarum Institute said health spending is on the rise, likely the result of a recovering economy. Growth in health spending has been unusually slow for the past few years. Altarum's report noted that health care spending as part of the gross domestic product reached an all-time high of 17.9 percent in March, and that the health care industry added 18,700 jobs in April.

Meanwhile, health care prices in March grew 1.1 percent year-over-year, while hospital prices grew 1.3 percent, the report said.

Charles Roehrig, director of the Altarum Institute’s Center for Sustainable Health Spending, said health spending isn’t on a 10 percent growth path for 2014.

“Health spending growth rates have increased rapidly in recent months, but the 7.1 percent figure observed for March may well mark the end of this acceleration,” Roehrig said. “This is because of a leveling off in the numbers of newly insured under the Affordable Care Act. The 10 percent annualized growth rate for the first quarter of 2014 that has received recent media coverage is based upon comparison to the preceding quarter and is not an indicator of annual growth for 2014 as a whole.”