Assessing the opportunity costs of Covid-19 patients in hospitals

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Health Economics, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

2 Department of Health Economics, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

3 School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

LBL_COMMENTED_AT/ijhr.2021.281755.1462

Abstract

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

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