Utilization and Cost of Inpatient Dermatologic Procedures: A Cross-sectional Analysis

Knowledge surrounding inpatient dermatologic procedure costs is limited; therefore to learn more, we performed a cross-sectional analysis of dermatologic procedures contained in a publicly available Washington State Comprehensive Hospital Abstract Reporting System database from 2014. Dermatologic procedure utilization and cost were evaluated based on several parameters including demographics, length of hospital stay, payments, and payers. SAS 9.4 was used for the analysis. A total of 14,768 patients underwent dermatologic procedures in 2014 and 81.0% were white. The average age was 53 years (SD = 0.17), and the average payment for all patients who underwent dermatologic procedures was $85,059.48 (SD = $1,284.34). The average hospital length of stay was 8.91 days (SD = 0.07). The most common admission type was elective (66.2%), the most common admit source was a non-healthcare facility point of origin (78.2%), the most common primary payer was Medicare (36.2%), and the most common procedure was incision and drainage of skin and subcutaneous tissue (26.5%), followed by closure of skin and subcutaneous tissue of other sites (20%). This analysis demonstrated that inpatient dermatologic procedures are a significant driver of inpatient health care costs, and it is critical to determine factors that increase inpatient costs related to dermatologic procedures in order to develop strategies for reducing healthcare costs.