Inpatient Hospital Charge Variability of U.S. Hospitals.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The range of hospital charges for similar diagnoses show tremendous variability across U.S. hospitals. This charge variability remains unexplained.

Objective

We aimed to describe hospital charge variability in the U.S. and examine its relationship to local health factors.

Design

This was a descriptive study of the 2011 Medicare Inpatient Charge data summarizing inpatient hospital charges billed to Medicare. This data was evaluated using 29 county-level measures of health status, health behavior, clinical access and quality, built environment, and socioeconomic status in a clustered, multivariate linear regression.

Participants

2871 U.S. hospitals registered with Medicare and with at least ten discharges for diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) of six comm

SUBMITTER: Park JD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4617932 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature