Average COVID hospital stay cost more than $11,000, study finds

COVID-19 hospital admissions cost an average of $11,275 per stay in medical costs that mounted steadily during the pandemic as fewer patients died, a study has found.

Six researchers published the findings Wednesday in JAMA Network Open. They analyzed 1,333,404 inpatient admissions with a primary or secondary COVID diagnosis at 841 hospitals from March 2020 to March 2022 — out of more than 6.2 million COVID hospitalizations nationwide.

The study found the adjusted direct cost of inpatient treatment at U.S. hospitals jumped from an average of $10,394 at the end of March 2020 to $13,072 by March 2022. It cited improved COVID treatments and increased use of oxygen life support as factors in the rise.

“Early on, there were more older patients with more comorbidities and the mortality rate was very high,” Kandice Kapinos, a senior economist at the Rand Corp. and co-author of the study, told The Washington Times. “As treatments emerged, the mortality rates declined, patients had longer stays and were more likely to get costlier procedures.”

Hospital costs for COVID patients surged at more than five times the rate of medical inflation during the two years, the study noted.

Patients who were obese, suffered blood clotting or required oxygen drew the costliest treatments as they battled the virus.

Recognizing these high costs is necessary for “improving public health readiness and related policies” moving forward, the researchers wrote.

The findings highlight the importance of preventive health measures, said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security not involved in the study.

“Hospitalization costs for COVID are not trivial and comorbid conditions increase that cost,” Dr. Adalja, an infectious disease specialist, told The Times. “The study demonstrates that prevention of hospitalization is not only beneficial to health but has an economic impact as well.”

According to the study, COVID-19 patients who required oxygen to keep their hearts and lungs functioning incurred an average of $36,484 in direct medical costs.

On average, obese patients drew an extra $2,924 in inpatient costs on top of what other patients faced during their stay.

Those suffering from blood clotting faced an extra $3,017 in costs.

Overall, researchers estimated that COVID-19 inpatient stays cost U.S. hospitals $70 billion from March 2020 to March 2022.

That’s more than double the U.S. investments in developing COVID vaccines, Ms. Kapinos noted.

“Our findings are particularly relevant to hospitals but also to society as we think about what the aggregate medical costs of responding to the pandemic were and how we might invest in prevention efforts for future pandemics,” she said.

The study “reinforces the importance of being up to date with COVID vaccinations in order to prevent hospitalization,” said William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

“Patients hospitalized with COVID often have chronic medical conditions such as obesity, diabetes and lung or kidney disease,” Dr. Schaffner said. “This makes them sicker, requiring care not only more elaborate for COVID, but also for their underlying medical conditions.”

For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.