Costs of care for each condition varied widely. Care for a typical patient with congestive heart failure averaged $7,114 and could range from $1,522 to $18,927, depending on which of the 3,146 hospitals discharged the patient. Cost of care for a typical patient with pneumonia averaged $7,040 and varied from $1,897 to $15,829 per hospitalization among 3,152 facilities.
"Compared with hospitals in the lowest-cost quartile [one-fourth] for congestive heart failure care, hospitals in the highest-cost quartile had higher quality-of-care scores (89.9 percent vs. 85.5 percent) and lower mortality [death] for congestive heart failure (9.8 percent vs. 10.8 percent)," the authors write. "For pneumonia, the converse was true. Compared with low-cost hospitals, high-cost hospitals had lower quality-of-care scores (85.7 percent vs. 86.6 percent) and higher mortality for pneumonia (11.7 percent vs. 10.9 percent)."
Hospitals with lower costs had similar or slightly higher 30-day readmission rates (24.7 percent for congestive heart failure and 17.9 percent for pneumonia) when compared with higher-cost hospitals (22 percent for congestive heart failure and 17.3 percent for pneumonia). However, patients initially seen in lower-cost hospitals still incurred lower overall costs of care over six months compared with patients initially seen in higher-cost hospitals ($12,715 vs. $18,411 for congestive heart failure and $10,143 vs. $15,138 for pneumonia).
Marie Flores on 12 Jul 16Men are at a greater risk for cardiac arrest, compared to women. At least one in nine men will experience cardiac arrest before the age of 70, compared to one in 30 women. At the age of 45, men have an 11 percent higher lifetime risk of cardiac arrest, compared to only a three percent …
