Medical care costs of patients with AIDS in San Francisco
A. A. Scitovsky, M. Cline and P. R. Lee
This article reports on the findings of a study of medical care
expenditures of persons with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)
treated at San Francisco General Hospital in 1984. We found that mean
charges per AIDS hospital admission were $9024, mean charges of patients
with AIDS who received all their hospital inpatient and outpatient care at
San Francisco General Hospital in 1984 ranged from $7026 to $23,425, and
mean lifetime inpatient charges of patients with AIDS who died and who had
received all their inpatient care at the hospital were $27,571. These
latter charges were considerably lower than previously published estimates
of lifetime direct medical care costs of patients with AIDS, and the
possible reasons for the differences include much lower lifetime use of
hospital services and somewhat lower cost per hospital day.
