Room charges account for majority of pediatric hospital costs

A retrospective analysis of costs associated with pediatric hospitalizations reveals that just room charges make up between half to three-quarters of the medical bill. Looking at nearly 200,000 hospitalizations across 48 children's hospitals in 2017, scientists found that just room charges made up between 52%-70% of the full cost of the medical bill. When it came to non-room charges, there was a wide range of costs among different possible conditions. For example, costs for seizure-related treatment varied from 25%-81% of non-room costs, while diagnoses for gastrointestinal conditions ranged from 28%-69% of non-room costs. In an accompanying editorial, physicians write that although the main findings indicate that improvements to room charges could help alleviate the high cost of medical care, it's difficult to know which services get labeled under the "room charge" umbrella, and call for more standardization among billing practices.