Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Find out which conditions cost payers, patients the most.

In 2004, the United States' collective hospital bill was a whopping $790 billion, a new report says.

That price tag represents 39 million hospital stays for the year, and federal and state governments paid for 60 percent of the national hospital bill for Medicare and Medicaid patients, according to new statistics from HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

Five conditions accounted for one-fifth of the national hospital bill: coronary atherosclerosis, mother's pregnancy and delivery, newborn infants, myocardial infarction, and congestive heart failure, AHRQ reports. "Hospital stays for coronary atherosclerosis incurred the highest charges ($44 billion); mother's pregnancy and delivery had the second highest charges ($41 billion)," the agency says.

For more statistics, see the brief from AHRQ's Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, "The National Hospital Bill: The Most Expensive Conditions, by Payer, 2004," at www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb13.pdf.