Firearm assaults cost U.S. hospitals almost $630 million in 2010 and alot of that falls on public payers, according to recent research by the Urban Institute.
Embry Howell, author of the report and a senior fellow with the Urban Institute's Health Policy Center, said in 2010 there were 36,341 ED visits (11.8 visits per 100,000 people) and 25,024 hospitalizations (8.1 visits per 100,000 people) due to firearm assaults.
Just over half of the hospital costs incurred were for those with public insurance, mainly Medicaid, and another 28 percent of the costs were for the uninsured, according to the report.
"One important thing is that a study like this hasn't been done before so it raises a lot of questions," said Howell. "Inpatient costs for these incidents are very expensive and we suspect that our data is likely underreported. And, as you can see, most of the cost is taken over by taxpayers. Even though taxpayers aren't responsible for the events, they are responsible for the bill."
According to the report, other findings include that young males (ages 15-24) are the most common firearm victims, visiting the ED almost seven times more than the national average; people who reside in the lowest income zip codes are about twice as likely to have an ED visit or be admitted to the hospital for firearm assault injuries.
ED usage rates for firearm assaults vary by U.S. census region, which correspond to the higher reported household gun ownership in the South (35 percent) and Midwest (38 percent), compared with the West (27 percent) and the Northeast (22 percent) according to 2010 data.
Howell also noted that the cost of a stay for a firearm assault injury was nearly $14,000 more than the average inpatient stay in 2010.
Additionally, uninsured patients are less likely to be admitted to the hospital than insured patients, according to the report. The discrepancy could be due to a hospital's reluctance to admit a patient without insurance coverage, a higher ED mortality rate for uninsured firearm assault victims, an effort by the hospital to obtain insurance for a patient once he or she is admitted, or differences in the severity of injury between the insured and uninsured.
Howell noted that with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), many low-income uninsured victims of firearm assaults (including many young males) will become eligible for Medicaid and other forms of insurance. And as the country focuses on lowering healthcare costs through prevention methods, decreasing firearm assaults and injuries should receive attention as a public health priority.
"Bottom line is this is a prevention issue - a public health issue. It's a potentially preventable condition," she said. "It's a challenge to prevent this, but we can look at this issue with folks in the public health and criminal justice field about ways to cut down on gun violence."