Procedures with the Most Rapidly Increasing Hospital Costs, 2000-2004. Statistical Brief No. 28

摘要

Approximately one-third of the U.S. health care dollar is spent on inpatient hospital care, making hospitalizations the single most expensive component of the health care system. Hospital costs reflect the amount of money expended by the hospital for patient care (excluding physician expenses). In 2004, total hospital costs grew to $295 billionan increase of 21.9 percent from 2000. In 2004, more than 60 percent of the nearly 39 million hospital stays involved some type of procedure. Some of these procedures have been associated with much more rapidly increasing hospital costs than others. Identifying the procedures that generate the most rapid increases in hospital costs may contribute to a more informed discussion of overall cost increases. The increasing costs associated with a specific procedure can be the result of several causes, including the extension of treatment to different types of patients, treating more severely ill patients, rising salaries and input costs, and the diffusion of newer technologies and more expensive equipment. This Statistical Brief provides data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) and identifies which procedures generated the most rapidly increasing hospital costs between 2000 and 2004. The brief shows estimates of the portion of the cost increase resulting from greater use of top procedures (higher volume) versus a rise in mean cost per stay. Information is presented for all payers and separately by four payer groups: Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, and self-pay (uninsured). All differences between estimates noted in the text are statistically significant at the 0.05 level or better. Costs for 2000 were adjusted to 2004 dollars using the overall Consumer Price Index (CPI).