Gender and utilization of ancillary services.
OBJECTIVE
To determine whether gender is associated with the use of ancillary services in hospitalized patients.


METHODS
A retrospective study of laboratory and radiology tests ordered for medical and surgical inpatients over 16-month and 20-month periods, respectively. Obstetric patients were excluded.


RESULTS
Number of clinical laboratory and radiology tests per admission, their associated charges, and total charges per admission were measured. In crude analyses, women had 16.5% fewer clinical laboratory tests (p < .0001) with 18.8% lower associated charges (p < .0001) and 24.4% fewer radiology tests (p < .0001) with 15.6% lower associated charges (p < .0001) than men. Total changes for the admission were lower for women in both the clinical laboratory study period ($16,178 vs $18,912, p < .0001) and the radiology study period ($14,621 vs $18,182, p < .0001). When adjusted for age, race, insurance status, service, diagnosis-related-group weight, and length of stay, these differences were smaller but persisted: women had 3.7% fewer laboratory tests performed (p < .001) with 4.8% lower associated charges (p < .001). In similarly adjusted analyses for radiology studies, women received 10.4% fewer radiology examinations (p < .001), with 4.1% lower associated charges (p < .01). There were no significant differences in the adjusted total charges in the laboratory group ($17,450 vs $17,655, p = .20) and only a marginally significant difference in the radiology group ($16,278 vs $16,498, p = .05). When we compared ancillary utilization within the five largest diagnosis-related groups, these differences persisted.


CONCLUSIONS
Men receive more ancillary services than women, even after adjusting for potential confounders.
Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass 02115, USA.
A K
AK
Jha
G J
GJ
Kuperman
E
E
Rittenberg
D W
DW
Bates
D000720:Ancillary Services, Hospital / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015986:Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic; D003953:Diagnosis-Related Groups; D005260:Female; D017721:Hospital Costs; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012737:Sex Factors