Measuring comorbidity and overlap in the hospitalization cost for alcohol and drug abuse and mental illness.
This paper measures the cost of short-stay hospitalization in 1985 for alcohol and drug abuse and mental illness (ADM). We identify and quantify two measurement problems: comorbidity in which ADM disorders may play a secondary role to other diagnoses and "overlap" in which ADM disorders occur together. Using data from the National Hospital Discharge Survey, we estimate the ADM short-stay hospital costs to total $13.1 billion. Almost four-fifths are costs of care for patients with primary ADM diagnoses and the remaining one-fifth is attributed to ADM comorbidity. About one-fifth of both the ADM discharges and the days of care represent overlap for hospitalized patients.
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D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000150:complications / Q000191:economics*; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000191:economics; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000191:economics*; D008875:Middle Aged; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000191:economics*; D014481:United States