%0 Journal Article %T Assessing the opportunity costs of Covid-19 patients in hospitals %J International Journal of Hospital Research %I Iran University of Medical Sciences %Z 2251-8940 %A Meshkani, zahra %A Mosavi-Negad, Seyed Masood %A valipour yekani, neda %A Hasan negad, Behnam %D 2022 %\ 01/01/2022 %V 11 %N 1 %P - %! Assessing the opportunity costs of Covid-19 patients in hospitals %K COVID-19 %K Hospital %K opportunity cost %K stochastic demand %R LBL_COMMENTED_AT/ijhr.2021.281755.1462 %X Background and objective: The utilization of hospital beds were changed during coronavirus pandemic. A number of beds were blocked and non-Covid-19 patients have to be rejected. It led to revenue foregone and opportunity costs for hospitals as well. Assessing the opportunity cost of admitting Covid-19 patients in the first-wave peak from the hospital perspective to help policymakers for decision making or managing the budget impact was the aim of the present study. Method: It was a cross-sectional study. The net benefit of admitting non- Covid-19 patients in comparison with Covid-19 patients was considered as opportunity costs of hospitals decision in the first-wave peak of the Covid-19 crisis (March to July 2020). So, a financial analysis was performed. A number of three Iranian hospitals based on convenience sampling were included.  Results: Admitting Covid-19 patients had US$ 57 benefits for selected hospitals while non-Covid-19 patients had US$ 69 loss for them, on average. Overall, the benefit of Covid-19 cases was higher than non-Covid-19 in the profitable hospitals, and the Covid-19 patients' losses were less than those of non-Covid-19 patients in loss-making hospitals. Conclusion: Admitting the Covid-19 patients did not have the opportunity costs for hospitals. Responding to the stochastic demand is recommended to hospitals in crisis %U https://ijhr.iums.ac.ir/article_139055_c136c1a8b0ca5e01546b6107a11180d7.pdf