Alcohol-Abuse Hospital Visits Cost $2B

Hospital treatment for patients with alcohol-abuse disorders costs about $2 billion per year, according to new federal data.

U.S. community hospitals treated nearly 210,000 patients for alcohol abuse in 2003, the most recent year for which data are available, according to the Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

In addition, more than 1 million patients admitted for other reasons also had a diagnosis of alcohol abuse.

The cost of such care is often borne by the government and other parts of the healthcare safety net.

A quarter of the hospital stays primarily for alcohol abuse involved Medicaid patients, 21 percent involved uninsured patients and 13 percent were for Medicare patients, while 34 percent were for privately insured patients.

Among the uninsured, alcohol-abuse disorders were the fourth most common reason for hospitalization, accounting for about 25 of every 1,000 hospital stays.