21 noteworthy statistics on healthcare in the US

The following list is comprised of statistics representing different aspects of the healthcare industry, including facts about hospitals, costs, utilization, physicians, insurance, emergency department visits and EHRs.

The statistics were gathered from various sources.

Hospitals

Source: Kaiser Family Foundation State Health Facts

1. As of 2014, the total number of hospitals in the U.S. is 4,926.

2. More than 58 percent of all U.S. hospitals are nonprofit.

3. About 20 percent of all U.S. hospitals are owned by state or local governments.

4. For-profit hospitals represent 21.4 percent of all U.S. hospitals.

Hospital costs

Sources: Kaiser Family Foundation State Health Facts and the National Expenditure Accounts

5. U.S. hospitals see an average of $2,212 adjusted expenses per inpatient day.

6. Hospitals in Oregon see the highest costs per inpatient day at $3,344.

7. South Dakota hospitals see the lowest costs per inpatient day at $1,294.

8. Total U.S. healthcare spending reached nearly $3 trillion in 2014.

Hospital utilization

Sources: National Hospital Discharge Survey and Summary Health Statistics: National Health Interview Survey, 2014

9. The average length of stay for inpatient care is 4.8 days.

10. Roughly 7 percent of patients stay overnight at the hospital.

Physicians

Sources: Kaiser Family Foundation State Health Facts, Merritt Hawkins' "2015 Review of Physician and Advanced Practitioner Recruiting Incentives" report and the National Rural Health Association

11. As of April, a total of 908,508 professionally active physicians operated in the U.S.

12. Nearly 48 percent of professionally active physicians practice primary care.

13. About 52 percent of professionally active physicians are specialists.

14. Family medicine is the most sought physician specialty in hospital recruitment, followed by psychiatry.

15. About 10 percent of U.S. physicians work in rural areas, serving one-fourth of the U.S. population.

Insurance

Source: Kaiser Family Foundation State Health Facts

16. Forty-nine percent of the U.S. population is insured under employers.

17. Another 32 percent are insured under Medicaid and Medicare.

18. Medicaid costs totaled nearly $500 billion in 2014.

Emergency department visits

Sources: National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and a Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project report

19. In 2011, a total of 136.3 million people visited the ED.

20. The No. 1 reason adults ages 45 to 84 are admitted to a hospital after an ED visit is septicemia.

EHRs

Source: Office-based Physician Electronic Health Record Adoption: 2004-2014

21. Eighty-three percent of office-based physicians use EHRs.

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