Procedures with the Most Rapidly Increasing Hospital Costs, 2004–2007

Excerpt

This Statistical Brief presents data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) and identifies which ten procedures generated the most rapidly increasing hospital costs between 2004 and 2007. Specifically, it shows estimates of the portion of the cost increase resulting from greater use of procedures versus a rise in the mean cost per stay. Note that possible demographic changes, illness patterns, technology changes or other causal determinants of the increasing use of these procedures are not addressed here. Information is presented by four payer groups: Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, and self-pay (uninsured). All differences between estimates provided in the text are statistically significant at the 0.05 level or better. Costs for 2004 were adjusted to 2007 dollars using the overall Consumer Price Index (CPI).