Digital News Report – Hospitals spent $83 billion in 2008 caring for people with diabetes with one out of every five hospitalizations being a person that has diabetes. This was according to a report prepared by the Healthcare Research and Quality Agency (AHRQ).
There was around 7.2 million hospitals stays for patients that had diabetes but were being treated for other conditions, while 540,000 hospitals stays were in direct treatment for diabetes.
The $83 billion spent on diabetes patients by hospitals reflects is around 23 percent on their overall expenditures for treatments.
Diabetes patients cost on average 25 percent more than those that didn’t have the disease. Medicare paid around 60 percent of the hospital stays for people with diabetes while private insurance paid 23 percent and Medicaid paid 10 percent of the stays. There were 4 percent of diabetic patients that were uninsured.
Diabetic patients were hospitalized for different reasons. There was 42 percent hospitalized for congestive heart failure, 38 percent for hardening of the arteries; 34 percent for heart attack; 31 percent for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; and 29 percent for chest pain with no specific cause.
The read the full report visit: http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb93.pdf
By: Victoria Brown
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