Infections occasionally have a knack for developing resistance to treatment, and when that happens, costs add up, according to a new study published in Health Affairs. Resistance adds more than $1,000 to the cost of treating just one person, and that adds up to about $2 billion per year.
As the old adage goes, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," and according to the researchers, that represents the best policy approach. They recommend an effective strategy modeled around infection prevention, along with more innovative drug development.
That's easier said than done, of course. Taking the challenge into consideration, the researchers suggested that hospitals start by tapping into ICD-10-CM codes and said the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services offer enticements including more reimbursement for the coding of such visits.
Researchers used data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey-Household Component and found that antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections jumped from 5 percent to 11 percent from 2002 to 2014.
Per infection, that translated to an incremental cost of $1,383, which the authors said understates the economic impact largely because of the rapid growth in the number of these infections, further bolstering the case for policies around the use of antibiotic medications.
According to the World Health Organization, few antibiotics are currently being developed to combat drug-resistant infections, with 23,000 people dying of such infections each year.
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Email the writer: jeff.lagasse@himssmedia.com