Medical Staff

Inpatient deaths cost $20 billion

Hospitalist Leadership Connection, February 16, 2010

Hospital deaths cost $20 billion, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, in the January issue of ACP Hospitalist.

Based on a study of more than 765,000 hospital patient deaths in 2007, a dying patient costs on average $26,035. Patients who lived and were discharged cost an average of $9,447. The dying patient costs rank about three times more expensive because they tend to have longer hospital stays (8.8 days) than living patients before discharge (4.5 days).

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