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Hospital charges for people with AIDS in Washington State: utilization of a statewide hospital discharge data base.

W E Lafferty, S G Hopkins, J Honey, J D Harwell, P C Shoemaker and J M Kobayashi

Seattle-King County Department of Public Health, AIDS Surveillance Unit, WA 98101.

We analyzed Washington State inpatient hospital utilization for 165 AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) cases with 344 hospitalizations from July 1984 through December 1985. We found that mean charges per hospitalization were $9,166 and mean length of stay was 13.3 days. In addition, evaluation of two diagnosis-related groups (DRGs 079 and 398) commonly used for AIDS hospitalizations showed that AIDS hospitalizations were substantially more expensive than non-AIDS hospitalizations within the same diagnosis-related group. AIDS-specific diagnosis-related groups may be necessary to achieve a balance between inpatient charges and reimbursements.