Data Stream
Costs Coast to Coast
Looking for a cheap stay in the hospital? You
might want to head to Louisville, Kentucky, according to an analysis of insurance claims data to
determine how health spending varies across the
United States. An average inpatient stay varied by
up to $5,644 depending on a patient’s location.
Average cost of an inpatient stay was $12,671, but
here are the 10 cities from the most expensive to
least expensive inpatient stays:
1. Denver, Colorado: $14,363
2. Dallas, Texas: $14,146
#2
St. Louis
$9,285
#1
Denver
$14,363
3. San Antonio, Texas: $14,072
#4
Kansas City
$9,943
4. Fort Worth, Texas: $13,379
5. Phoenix, Arizona: $13,322
5. Atlanta, Georgia: $10,473
#5
Phoenix
$13,322
#4
Fort Worth
$13,379
4. Kansas City, Missouri: $9,943
3. Washington, DC: $9,834
#3
San Antonio
$14,072
2. St. Louis, Missouri: $9,285
#3
Washington, DC
$9,834
#1
Louisville
$8,719
#5
Atlanta
$10,473
#2
Dallas
$14,146
1. Louisville, Kentucky: $8,719
Source: Cooper Z, Craig S, Gaynor M, Van Reenen J. “The price ain’t right? Hospital prices and health spending on the privately insured.”
Health Care Pricing Project. December 2015.
Good Night to Bad Luck
A new report published in Nature suggests that cancer risk is heavily influenced by extrinsic or external
factors – challenging the “bad luck” hypothesis that cancer development is largely due to chance.
An analysis of epidemiologic data showed that:
Only
10-30
%
of cancers are related
to intrinsic risk factors
(including random mutations and rates of stem
cell division)
Doctors on the Defensive
Providing more care than necessary
may lower a doctor’s risk of being
sued for malpractice, according to a
report published in The BMJ. In the analysis of data
from nearly 18.3 million hospital admissions and
4,300 subsequent malpractice claims, researchers
found that so-called “defensive medicine” helped
protect internists against lawsuits.
Approximately
70-90
%
of cancers are related to extrinsic risk factors (including
environmental exposures
and behaviors)
For doctors who spent ≤$19,725 per
hospital admission (the bottom
spending group), the probability of
experiencing an alleged malpractice
incident was 1.5%.
That risk dropped to 0.3% for doctors who spent ≥$39,379 per hospital
admission (the top spending group).
“These results are important for strategizing cancer prevention, research, and public health,” the authors
concluded.
Source: Jena AB, Schoemaker L, Bhattacharya J, Seabury SA.
Physician spending and subsequent risk of malpractice claims:
observational study. BMJ. 2015 November 4. [Epub ahead of print]
Source: Wu S, Powers S, Zhu W, Hannun YA. Substantial contribution of extrinsic risk factors to cancer development. Nature. 2015
December 16. [Epub ahead of print]
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ASH Clinical News
February 2016