Hospital Care For Alcohol Abuse Disorders Cost $2 Billion Annually, USA

America's community hospitals treated nearly 210,000 patients for alcohol abuse disorders in 2003 at a cost of about $2 billion, according to HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.


-- Twenty-five percent of the hospital stays that were primarily for alcohol abuse disorders involved Medicaid patients, 21 percent involved uninsured patients, 13 percent were for Medicare patients, and 34 percent were for privately insured patients.


-- More than 1 million patients admitted for other reasons also had a diagnosis of alcohol abuse. About 3 percent of all hospital stays had some mention of alcohol abuse.


-- Among the uninsured, 25.3 out of every 1,000 hospital stays were for alcohol abuse disorders, making them the 4th most common reason for hospitalization in this group.


-- Alcohol abuse was among the top 25 most common reasons for hospitalization among men of all ages and was the 4th most common reason among men ages 35 to 44.


-- Overall, 65 percent of all hospital admissions primarily for alcohol abuse disorders also involved a substance abuse disorder, 34.4 percent involved mood disorders such as depression or bipolar disease, 11.5 percent had alcohol-related liver disease, and 8.7 percent had anxiety disorders.


The Nationwide Inpatient Sample is database of hospital inpatient stays that is nationally representative of all short-term, non-federal hospitals. The data are drawn from hospitals that comprise 90 percent of all discharges in the United States and include all patients, regardless of insurance type as well as the uninsured.

For more data, see Hospitalizations for Alcohol Abuse Disorders, 2003, HCUP Statistical Brief # 4.