Medical care costs of patients with AIDS in San Francisco

This article reports on the findings of a study of medical care expenditures of persons with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) treated at San Francisco General Hospital in 1984. We found that mean charges per AIDS hospital admission were $9024, mean charges of patients with AIDS who received all their hospital inpatient and outpatient care at San Francisco General Hospital in 1984 ranged from $7026 to $23,425, and mean lifetime inpatient charges of patients with AIDS who died and who had received all their inpatient care at the hospital were $27,571. These latter charges were considerably lower than previously published estimates of lifetime direct medical care costs of patients with AIDS, and the possible reasons for the differences include much lower lifetime use of hospital services and somewhat lower cost per hospital day.