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AIDS-Related Hospitalizations Down, but Up for women; Payment Trends
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"AIDS hospital stays slashed by drug combo: but interesting trends"
WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- The AIDS "drug cocktail" seems to have cut AIDS-related hospital admissions nearly in half, according to a new survey.
The number of hospital admissions for HIV infection in the United States declined from a high of 149,000 in 1995 -- just before approval of a combination of protease inhibitor drugs -- to 70,000 admissions in 2003, according to a survey released by the Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Also, AIDS deaths dropped by 32 percent in the same period, from 12.5 percent in 1995 to 8.5 percent in 2003.
"This information clearly highlights the benefits of quickly putting new, potentially life-saving medical advances into everyday clinical practice," said AHRQ Director Carolyn Clancy. "We anticipate that by World AIDS Day next year, we will see continued improvements."
However, the AHRQ data also show the percentage of female HIV patients increased during this time period, from 26 percent of hospital stays in 1995 to nearly 34 percent in 2003.
New payment trends also emerged from the survey. Medicaid's share of the AIDS bill declined from 53 percent of all HIV hospital stays in 1995 to 49 percent in 2003, while Medicare's share increased from 11 percent in 1995 to nearly 17 percent in 2003.
The share of HIV stays billed to private insurers also dropped from 22 percent to 17 percent. In contrast, the percentage of HIV hospital stays by uninsured patients rose from 8 percent to nearly 11 percent in the same time period.
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