Demystifying Hospital Charges for Hospital Readmissions in 2017 in the United States for Psychoses (DRG = 885)
Abstract
Existing research on hospital charges is focused on hospital admissions, but not on hospital readmissions. Literature review on hospital charges identifies several patient-specific, disease-specific, and hospital-specific variables as determinants of hospital charges. Given that there is a relative dearth of similar research focused on hospital readmissions, a federal agency – The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has recognized this gap and developed the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) in 2015 which contains information on hospital readmissions data. “This database addresses a large gap in healthcare data - the lack of nationally representative information on hospital readmissions.” We utilize the 2017 Hospital Readmissions database to empirically study factors that impact hospital charges for hospital readmissions. The 2017 database has over 8 million records for the 999 Diagnoses Related Groups (DRGs), each code representing a disease code for each hospital visit. Our study focuses primarily on Psychoses (DRG=885) which is the fourth most expensive readmissions DRG in the AHRQ database for readmissions. Psychoses has 609,360 records which is the sample size for this research. We employ regression analyses using patient demographics, in-patient care variables and hospital characteristics to explain variance in hospital charges. In-patient care variables (number of diagnosis, number of procedures, LOS) are most dominant determinants of hospital charges. Hospital control/ownership and age of patient are minor determinants of hospital charges. Results show that in-patient care (diagnoses, procedures) length of stay, hospital private/public ownership and younger patients result in higher hospital charges.
Faculty Sponsors
Dr. Ravi Chinta
Project Type
Event
Location
Alvin Sherman Library
Start Date
4-6-2021 12:00 PM
End Date
4-9-2021 12:00 PM
Demystifying Hospital Charges for Hospital Readmissions in 2017 in the United States for Psychoses (DRG = 885)
Alvin Sherman Library
Existing research on hospital charges is focused on hospital admissions, but not on hospital readmissions. Literature review on hospital charges identifies several patient-specific, disease-specific, and hospital-specific variables as determinants of hospital charges. Given that there is a relative dearth of similar research focused on hospital readmissions, a federal agency – The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has recognized this gap and developed the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) in 2015 which contains information on hospital readmissions data. “This database addresses a large gap in healthcare data - the lack of nationally representative information on hospital readmissions.” We utilize the 2017 Hospital Readmissions database to empirically study factors that impact hospital charges for hospital readmissions. The 2017 database has over 8 million records for the 999 Diagnoses Related Groups (DRGs), each code representing a disease code for each hospital visit. Our study focuses primarily on Psychoses (DRG=885) which is the fourth most expensive readmissions DRG in the AHRQ database for readmissions. Psychoses has 609,360 records which is the sample size for this research. We employ regression analyses using patient demographics, in-patient care variables and hospital characteristics to explain variance in hospital charges. In-patient care variables (number of diagnosis, number of procedures, LOS) are most dominant determinants of hospital charges. Hospital control/ownership and age of patient are minor determinants of hospital charges. Results show that in-patient care (diagnoses, procedures) length of stay, hospital private/public ownership and younger patients result in higher hospital charges.
