Costs for Hospital Stays in the United States, 2012 #181

Costs for Hospital Stays in the United States, 2012 #181

AHRQ Stats: Government Insurance

Government payers covered 62 percent of the $378 billion aggregate cost of U.S. hospital stays in 2012. Medicare paid 46 percent, and Medicaid paid 16 percent. (Source: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Statistical Brief #181:Costs for Hospital Stays in the United States, 2012.)

Costs for Hospital Stays in the United States, 2012

Brian Moore, Ph.D., Katharine Levit, B.A., and Anne Elixhauser, Ph.D. 

Highlights

Of the $377.5 billion aggregate hospital inpatient costs in 2012, 46 percent was for Medicare-covered stays and 16 percent was for Medicaid-covered stays. Thus, patients covered by government payers accounted for at least 62 percent of all hospital costs. More than half of Medicare-covered and uninsured stays were medical (55 percent and 54 percent, respectively). More than half of stays covered by private insurance were surgical (52 percent). Maternal and neonatal stays constituted 27 percent of costs for Medicaid, 15 percent of costs for private insurers, and 4 percent of costs for uninsured patients. Mean hospital costs in 2012 were highest for surgical stays ($21,200)—2.5 times the mean costs for medical stays ($8,500) and nearly five times the mean costs for maternal and neonatal stays ($4,300). Patients aged 45-64 and 65-84 years had the highest mean hospital costs in 2012 ($12,900 and $13,000, respectively), but patients under age 18 had the highest growth in mean costs between 2008 and 2012 (more than 6 percent annually). Among payers of hospital stays, Medicare had the highest mean hospital costs in 2012 ($12,200), but between 2008 and 2012 mean Medicare costs grew at the lowest annual rate (0.9 percent). Average annual growth in aggregate hospital costs slowed from 5.2 percent in the 2003-2008 time period to 2.1 percent in the 2008-2012 time period.