Inpatient Costs of Treating Patients With COVID-19

Area of Science:

• Health Economics
• Infectious Disease Epidemiology
• Healthcare Management

Background:

• The COVID-19 pandemic caused over 6.2 million US hospitalizations, necessitating an understanding of inpatient care costs.
• Accurate cost data is crucial for assessing national medical resource utilization and informing public health policies.
• Variations in costs by pandemic waves and patient demographics require detailed examination.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the average cost of inpatient care for COVID-19 patients.
• To analyze how these costs varied across different pandemic waves.
• To investigate cost differences based on patient sociodemographic characteristics and comorbidities.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional study utilizing inpatient-level data from March 2020 to March 2022.
• Data was sourced from a repository covering 97% of US academic medical centers.
• Direct hospital costs were calculated and adjusted for geographic labor cost variations using area wage indices.

Main Results:

• The study analyzed 1,333,404 COVID-19 related inpatient stays across 841 hospitals.
• The adjusted mean cost per stay increased from $10,394 in March 2020 to $13,072 in March 2022.
• Patients with obesity ($2924 additional cost) and coagulation deficiency ($3017 additional cost) incurred higher expenses. Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) use significantly increased costs to $36,484.

Conclusions:

• The adjusted mean hospital cost for COVID-19 care rose significantly, outpacing medical inflation by over fivefold.
• Increased utilization of advanced treatments like ECMO contributed to the rising costs over time.
• Understanding these cost dynamics is vital for future pandemic preparedness and resource allocation.