The data, from AHRQ’s Statistical Brief #8 “Most Expensive Hospitalizations, 2008” found that mean total charge for the top 5 percent of hospital stays was $191,984 with an average of 19.0 days per stay, compared to a total charge of $20,804 and average of 3.9 days for all other stays.
The top five principal diagnoses associated with the most expensive stays included septicemia, coronary atherosclerosis, acute myocardial infarction, complication of device, implant or graft and respiratory failure.
As expected, patients with the most expensive hospital stays were much more severely ill — 73 percent of patients in the top 5 percent of stays had major or extreme loss of function, compared to only 23.9 percent of patients in bottom 95 percent of stays, according to the report.
Read the full AHRQ report on the most expensive hospital stays (pdf).
Read more covarege on AHRQ:
– AHRQ: Hospitals Reporting Better Data Faster to Its Database
– Two AHRQ Websites Relaunched
– AHRQ to Add Hospital Quality Ratings Based on Health Insurance Type
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