The economic impact on society of alcohol-impaired driving was thought to be well documented and all too apparent, but researchers at the Injury Prevention Center have discovered another way drunk drivers increase healthcare costs. The increases were noted in alcohol-impaired drivers who were minimally injured and treated in emergency departments and released.Even minimally injured alcohol-impaired drivers account for significantly higher emergency department costs than other drivers, the Rhode Island University researchers found.
Because drunk drivers are intoxicated, their perception of pain may be blunted while they are being treated in the emergency room and they are less able to help E.R. doctors diagnose the extent of their injuries.
Therefore, emergency care providers are more likely to order more diagnostic imaging studies, such as x-rays or MRIs. Also, the emergency room personnel may hold impaired patients for a longer period of observation until they are coherent enough for an accurate examination.
In other words, alcohol impairment complicates the clinical assessment of E.R. patients and therefore cost more.
How Much More Does It Cost?
Emergency medicine physician Michael Lee and his colleagues looked at the records of 1,618 patients who had alcohol in their systems while being treated in urban Level I trauma centers and who were discharged home directly from the E.R.
The study found that the median charges for patients under the influence of alcohol were higher by $4,538. The median stay in the emergency department was 3.3 hours longer than patients who were not alcohol impaired.
"A large percentage of that cost can be directly correlated to a higher frequency of and costlier diagnostic imaging studies. Imaging itself represents 69 percent of the charge differential." Dr. Lee said in a news release.
"While an alcohol-impaired driver may be treated for only minor injuries and discharged to home, there is still a considerably higher cost to treat that patient in an ER. Further, the time spent on them with a longer length of stay results in delays for other patients who need care in an ER," Lee concluded.
The study was published in the October 2009 edition of Annals of Emergency Medicine.
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