Does anyone know the average cost per day per patient for ICU?

Somewhere around there....for a 24 hour period. If you add in a vent and drips it can easily double. A vent runs about 1200-1500 a day. Consider that a bad of Cardene may run $500 or more. Saving someones life and sending them home to their family is expensive.

I know that just for a patient (non-isolation) to occupy one of our ICU rooms, they are charged something like $900 a day. That doesn't include anything else but the room. Throw in monitoring, a vent, pumps, drips, labs, lines, x-rays, meds, and other misc. charges, and it's easily over $5K. $10K doesn't sound too far off... it really just depends on what's wrong with the patient and if they're having complications or not.

In my facility, an incintive spirometer is $250, Pulse ox is $150, admission kit is $150, IV tubing is $80, one dose of 650 mg of Tylenol is $10.

I was always told ICU rooms are averaging $10,000 to $20,000 per 24 hours

We are a non-for-profit facility and made $110 million last year.

bucknangler said:

In my facility, an incintive spirometer is $250

What?! At my facility they cost maybe $10.

sicushells said:

What?! At my facility they cost maybe $10.

Nothing in ICU is $10. Oh...maybe a Q-tip.

I have to laugh at this thread. My husband was in a CCU 16 years ago and he got charged $37 for a "urinary care kit."

He was never catheterized. All he got was a plastic urinal.

Gotta love it.

Let me give you an idea of cost. In San Jose Ca, where I worked in the hospital in the ER, I developed a severe stomach ache after eating shrimp... went to my ED I received 4mg Zofran, 2 liters NS, had my blood drawn and got an ABD CT and left 4 hours later... What was my bill $16,583. I could have stayed home and bought a really nice used car. The same CT scan in Alabama cost 3k where in Ca is cost 7k. Same machine. Hospitals charge what ever they can get away with. That is why some of the worst MD's are allowed to practice because they make the hospital money through felonious charges.

The cost would be different based on location of facility and the state. Utah less than Calif. HMO"s cost will depend on contractual agreement. No easy answer, you will need to list facility and then contact finance department for cost. Medical records or HIS also can typically run these reports. Some hospitals might be reluctant to share the information so start with the facility where you work use contacts there. HIS would be the quickest route get info. Ask them to run a report by diagnosis code including cost. Each disease process will cost out differently. Hope this helps.

I did some research on this a while back - very interesting problem.

First, there is a difference between cost and price. Cost is what the hospital pays for staffing, diagnostics (including capital costs), therapeutics, and "hotel" costs ie the laundry. Price is what the hospital bills.

A couple researchers looked at this (name forgotten, sorry) and wrote a good paper on it. My limited memory tells me that costs for the first two days in the icu average about 10k per day. After that it starts to decease,such that in most cases the last day in the icu is about 2k or so. If you do a search on google scholar you should be able to find the paper.

I just know one statistic from my hospital that blows my mind. I work in a large children's hospital and the ICU's use inhaled nitric oxide like it's candy, I've known kids to literally LIVE on it for months. Anyways one of the attendants the other day was going on a rant about how insurance companies (including medicaid) don't want to pay for it anymore...and it's $500 PER the TEN minutes! That's $72,000 a DAY, and like I said I've known kids to be on it for months, never mind the mode they're getting it (ETT/Trach/Vent/vapotherm) and whatever else they're on since if they're getting nitric they're not doing too hot (unless they're chronically on it and can't get rid of it)

Let's see, crrt is 1250 just for the filter, apheresis tops out around 10,000 and people get it everyday for weeks at a time, yeah BMT docs keep pushing, then add the vent. and all the other costs. It is VERY variable on why you are there ie transplant surgery, BMT, Trauma, etc. One night for the room was almost 9000 where I worked that does not include fluids, blood, vent, etc. Don't know if this helps. IV fluids NS were 75$ and I was told they only cost under 1$ it compensates for all those who aren't insured.

I work in a surgical/trauma ICU. A surgery pt is charged just under 6000 per day and a trauma pt is charged 7900 Of course, this is just to stay in the room. No meds, no OR trips, no diagnostics or labs and no doctors.

Ouch.