Medicare is the US federal health insurance program for people who are 65 or older, certain younger people with disabilities, and people with End-Stage Renal Disease. Medicare spending in 2018 was 21% of the national US total health expenditure, more than six times larger than the largest private payer.

These sepsis acute inpatient admissions data reflect Fee-For-Service (Medicare Part A/B) beneficiaries only. The rate of rise of the admission counts is actually greater because the fraction of Medicare beneficiaries electing fee-for-service has declined in favor of the Medicare Advantage (Medicare Part C) option.

At the beginning of the period, 2012, FFS accounted for 78.6% of all sepsis admissions; by the end of the period, 2018, that fraction had fallen to 67.3%.

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