The Mat-Su Regional Medical Center, one of Alaska’s largest hospitals, is seen on May 3, 2022. An annual report released by the Alaska Department of Health quantifies patient stays, conditions requiring treatment and billing totals at hospitals around the state. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Alaskans were charged about $5.78 billion for hospital stays in 2023, according to an annual report published by the state Department of Health. Total charges increased from $5.31 billion in 2022 and $4.94 billion in 2021, according to the report.
The figures were released in the Alaska Health Facilities Data Reporting Program 2023 Annual Report issued this week by the department. The report quantifies total hospital discharges, emergency department discharges, outpatient surgeries and other medical procedures.
The annual report is based on data provided by 24 hospitals and 17 surgery centers around the state. The report does not include information from the military hospitals at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and Fort Wainwright.
Based on those hospitals’ records, there were 60,684 inpatient hospital discharges in 2023, the report said. That number is the total hospital stays rather than individual patients; some patients could have had multiple stays during the year, the report notes.
The top reason for being in the hospital in 2023 was being a newborn baby, according to the report. The median charge for the 6,949 babies born in Alaska hospitals last year was $6,621 and the median stay was two days, the report said.
The second-most-common reason for hospitalization was septicemia, for which the median charge was $83,071. Septicemia, the term for infection of the bloodstream, generally affected older patients, according to the numbers in the report. The third-most-ommon reason for hospitalization was complications during childbirth, for which the median charge was $22,712 and the median stay was two days.
Heart failure was the fourth-leading cause of hospitalizations, and alcohol-related disorders ranked fifth, according to the report.
Among the report’s details is information about the fading impact of COVID-19 since the peak of the pandemic. In 2023, there were 1,467 hospitalizations for COVID-19, compared to 3,100 in 2022, the report said. COVID-19 hospitalizations were costly, the report shows. The average billed charge for patients hospitalized in 2023 with the disease was $123,236, and $187,260 for patients admitted to intensive care units, the report said.
For all hospital stays, the most common payer was Medicaid, which covered 31.4% of hospitalizations, followed by Medicare, which covered 30.6%, the report said.
Emergency departments around the state fielded 285,134 visits, for which there were total charges of about $1.59 billion, with a median billed charge of $3,576, the report said. That compares to 275,568 visits and $1.28 billion in total charges, with a median bill of $3,091, in 2022 and 244,319 visits and total charges of $1.18 billion, with a median bill of $3,122, in 2021, according to the report.
The top three reasons for emergency department visits were abdominal pain and other digestive or abdomen problems, upper respiratory infection and alcohol-related disorders, the report said.
The medical facilities’ annual reporting dates to 2001, when the system was voluntary. Reporting is now mandatory under Alaska law, with regulations that became effective in December 2014. Those regulations have gone through some updates since then.
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