Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 May;46(5):1314-20.
doi: 10.1161/STROKEAHA.114.008563. Epub 2015 Apr 7.

Hospital costs associated with atrial fibrillation for patients with ischemic stroke aged 18-64 years in the United States

Guijing Wang  1 , Heesoo Joo  2 , Xin Tong  2 , Mary G George  2
Affiliations

Hospital costs associated with atrial fibrillation for patients with ischemic stroke aged 18-64 years in the United States

Guijing Wang et al. Stroke. 2015 May.

Abstract

Background and purpose: Hospital costs associated with atrial fibrillation (AFib) among patients with stroke have not been well-studied, especially among people aged <65 years. We estimated the AFib-associated hospital costs in US patients aged 18 to 64 years.

Methods: We identified hospital admissions with a primary diagnosis of ischemic stroke from the 2010 to 2012 MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters inpatient data sets, excluding those with capitated health insurance plans, aged <18 or >64 years, missing geographic region, hospital costs below the 1st or above 99th percentile, and having carotid intervention (n=40 082). We searched the data for AFib and analyzed the costs for nonrepeat and repeat stroke admissions separately. We estimated the AFib-associated costs using multivariate regression models controlling for age, sex, geographic region, and Charlson comorbidity index.

Results: Of the 33 500 nonrepeat stroke admissions, 2407 (7.2%) had AFib. Admissions with AFib cost $4991 more than those without AFib ($23 770 versus $18 779). For the 6582 repeat stroke admissions, 397 (6.0%) had AFib. The costs were $3260 more for those with AFib than those without ($24 119 versus $20 929). After controlling for potential confounders, AFib-associated costs for nonrepeat stroke admissions were $4905, representing 20.6% of the total costs for the admissions. Both the hospital costs and the AFib-associated costs were associated with age, but not with sex. AFib-associated costs for repeat stroke admissions were not significantly higher than for non-AFib patients, except for those aged 55 to 64 years ($3537).

Conclusions: AFib increased the hospital cost of ischemic stroke substantially. Further investigation on AFib-associated costs for repeat stroke admissions is needed.

Keywords: atrial fibrillation; hospital costs; stroke.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Study population selection process, 2010-2012 MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters Database Inpatient Admissions 1An admission was a non-repeat stroke admission if it was the only admission for a patient during the study period of 2010-2012; otherwise, it was classified as a repeat stroke admission.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Heron M. Deaths: leading cause for 2009. 2012;61(7) National Vital Statistics Reports. Available at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_07.pdf, Accessed April 13, 2013. - PubMed
    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Prevalence and most common causes of disability among adults, 2005. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2009;58:421–426. - PubMed
    1. Demaerschalk BM, Hwang HM, Leung G. US cost burden of ischemic stroke: a systematic literature review. Am J Manag Care. 2010;16:525–533. - PubMed
    1. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Total expenses and percent distribution for selected conditions by source of payment: United States, 2008. Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Household Component Data. http://meps.ahrq.gov/data_stats/tables_compendia_hh_interactive.jsp?_SER.... Accessed March 16, 2015.
    1. Brown DL, Boden-Albala B, Langa KM, Lisabeth LD, Fair M, Smith MA, et al. Projected costs of ischemic stroke in the United States. Neurology. 2006;67:1390–1395. - PubMed

MeSH terms