Breaking down hospital costs for selected medical conditions in Canada.

Understanding the components of hospital costs is an important policy tool for analyzing total hospital spending or for budget planning. The objective of this study is to estimate the average cost per stay and number of stays for male and female acute care inpatients for the 15 most expensive medical conditions, and to determine whether there is a gender difference in the share of cost due to co-morbidities. Regression analysis is used to account for gender and complexity, a proxy for co-morbidities. Our findings suggest on average male inpatient costs 9.7% more to treat than a female inpatient.