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Patient
Deaths in Hospitals cost nearly $20 Billion
Newswise — One of every three
people who died in 2007 in the United States
were in the hospital for treatment at the
time of their deaths, according to the
latest News and Numbers from the Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality. The cost of
their hospital stays was about $20 billion.
The federal agency’s analysis
of 765,651 hospital patient deaths in 2007
found that the average cost of hospital
stays in which patients died was $26,035,
versus an average of $9,447 for patients who
were discharged alive.
The costs were higher for
patients who died because their hospitals
stays were longer than those of patients who
lived (8.8 days vs. 4.5 days).
The study also found that:
• Medicare patients accounted
for 67 percent of in-hospital deaths and $12
billion in hospital costs, while privately
insured patients accounted for 20 percent of
deaths and $4 billion. Medicaid patients
accounted for 2 percent of deaths and $2.4
billion, and uninsured patients, 3 percent
and $630 million.
• The average cost for each Medicaid patient
who died was $38,939 – roughly $15,000 more
than the average cost of a Medicare or
uninsured patient who died, and about
$10,000 more than a privately insured
patient who died.
• About 12 percent of patients who died had
been admitted for an elective procedure or
other non-urgent reason and 72 percent were
emergency admissions. Roughly 7 percent of
patients who died were admitted for
accidents or intentional injury and about 2
percent were newborn infants.
• Septicemia, a life-threatening blood
infection, was the major cause of death,
accounting for 15 percent of all deaths,
followed by respiratory failure (8 percent);
stroke (6 percent); pneumonia (5 percent);
heart attack (5 percent); and congestive
heart failure (4 percent). Other leading
causes of death included cancer, aspiration
pneumonia, and kidney failure.
This AHRQ News and Numbers is
based on data in The Costs of End-of-Life
Hospitalizations, 2007 (http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb82.pdf).
The report uses statistics from the 2007
Nationwide Inpatient Sample, a database of
hospital inpatient stays that is nationally
representative of inpatient stays in all
short-term, non-Federal hospitals.
The data are drawn from
hospitals that comprise 90 percent of all
discharges in the United States and include
all patients, regardless of insurance type,
as well as the uninsured.