We Spent More Time in the Hospital in 2016

Government run general hospitals saw more business last year, with Americans spending  28,267,000 days as patients in government-run general hospitals in 2016, up 1.9% from 27,735,000 days in 2015, the Census Bureau said.  We also spent 144,878,000 inpatient days in private general hospitals last year, up 1.3% from 142,973,000 days in 2015.

The number of inpatient days in government-run psychiatric and substance abuse hospitals declined slightly, to 14,657,000 days last year from 14,662,000 days in 2015.  That’s a 3.4% drop.

But privately operated psychiatric and substance abuse hospitals saw inpatient usage grow, rising to 12,575,000 inpatient days in 2016 from 11,923,000 inpatient days in 2015.  That’s a 5.4% increase.

In terms of outpatient usage, both government and privately operated general hospitals saw increases.  The number of outpatient visits to government general hospitals rose 7.1% to 393,364,000 in 2016 from 367,292,000 visits in 2015.  Nongovernmental general hospitals saw the number of outpatient days rise 6% to 523,120,000 days from 493,444,000 days.

The number of outpatient visits to government-run psychiatric and substance abuse hospitals actually declined, to 10,643,000 from 10,928,000, a 2.6% drop, while the number of outpatient visits to privately run facilities grew 5.4% to 12,575,000 from 11,923,000.

SOURCE: Census Bureau Release CB17-160, Quarterly Selected Services Estimates, Third Quarter 2017, Table 13.

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