Excessive Heat Can Run up Hospitals’ Bad Debt Expense for Treating the Uninsured: Report

A report by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality suggests hospitals may find they are treating more uninsured patients suffering from heat exposure and exhaustion, resulting in more medical bad debt.

According to the report, “Hospital Stays Resulting from Excessive Heat and Cold Exposure Due to Weather Conditions in U.S. Community Hospitals, 2005,” about 6,200 people were hospitalized in 2005 due to excessive heat and weather conditions.

The report says the majority of people hospitalized for excessive heat were first seen in the emergency department and 81.6 percent were subsequently admitted for treatment. The average cost per heat-related stay was $6,200, compared to an average cost of all other stays of $8,100. But the admissions rate for heat-related hospitalizations that begin in the emergency department was significantly higher than the 42.5 percent of hospitalizations that began in the emergency department for all other admissions.  And 16.9 percent of uninsured admissions were related to excessive heat-related. 

Hospitals serving poor communities were hardest hit, treating two to two and a half more patients for weather related conditions than hospitals in wealthier communities.

If the economy remains stagnant or worsens, and if excessive cold weather hits, hospitals also may be hit with bad debt expenses related to treating large numbers of uninsured patients also struggling with rising heating costs.

The report said hospitalizations from extreme cold weather were even greater, amounting to 6,500 in 2005. And 77 percent of patients first seen in the emergency department for excessive cold-weather related illnesses were subsequently admitted at an average cost of $12,500 per stay because the hospitals stays tended to be longer.

The combined national cost of excessive heat and cold-weather related hospitalizations in 2005 was more than $120 million, the report said.