It's widely understood that after age 65, people are more likely to need care in a hospital compared with the general population. But a report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality quantifies it both in numbers and in dollars.
Seniors 65 and older had more than 14 million hospital stays, or more than one-third of all U.S. community hospital stays and 14%, or $157.7 billion, of total hospital costs for 2008, says the statistical brief.
The statistical brief says that while people over age 65 represent 12% of the population but use 34% of healthcare spending, and healthcare costs for those seniors "are three to five times higher than costs for patients under 65."
Those between the ages of 75 and 84 years accounted for almost 14% of the 40 million admissions to U.S. hospitals in 2008, while patients age 85 and older made up another 8%, for a total of 22% of hospital admissions.
These higher costs will increase healthcare spending in the U.S. by 25% by 2030.
The differences are seen especially for people who are 85 and older. They accounted for a relatively small share of hospital discharges (8% overall) but were more than twice as likely to be hospitalized as younger seniors between the ages of 65 and 74.
Also, congestive heart failure was the most common reason for hospitalizations of patients between 75 and 84, 23.2 stays per 1,000 population, and those 85 and 4.4.4 stays per 1,000 population for those 85 and older.
The most common procedure performed on any patient over age 64 was a blood transfusion, a rate that was higher for patients between 75 and 84 and even higher for those older than 84.
A color-coded chart in the brief shows the trend from 1997 to 2008. Where in 1997, seniors 85 or older accounted for 1% of the population, they accounted for 7% of the hospital discharges. By 2008, they accounted for 2% of the population but 8% of hospital discharges.
The report also lists the most common principal diagnoses for patients between 75 and 84 and for patients 85 or older. For the top five, they are more or less the same but urinary tract infections are the ninth most common for people between 75 and 84, but the third most common for older patients.
Coronary atherosclerosis and other heart disease is the seventh most common diagnosis for patients between 75 and 84, but the 17th most common for older patients.
And hip fracture is the 14th most common for patients between 75 and 84 but ranks sixth for older patients.