Those who are hospitalized with coronavirus can expect to pay anywhere from $42,486 to $74,310 if they are uninsured or if they receive care that’s deemed out-of-network by their insurance company, according to recent analysis by independent nonprofit FAIR Health.
For those with insurance who are using in-network providers, out-of-pocket costs will be a portion of $21,936 to $38,755, depending on the cost-sharing provisions of their health plan.
To determine the estimates, FAIR Health drew on its database of over 30 billion private health-care claim records, and on estimates of Medicare and Medicaid costs, to project U.S. costs for COVID-19 patients requiring inpatient stays using diagnosis-related groups associated with pneumonia.
FAIR also ran a slightly different cost analysis of COVID-19 medical care using procedure codes associated with influenza and pneumonia. Using those metrics, FAIR found uninsured Americans with COVID-19 could pay an estimated average of $73,300 for a 6-day hospital stay, while insured patients could expect to pay a portion of the $38,221 average cost billed to insurers.