Average cost of VA rehabilitation, mental health, and long-term hospital stays

This article describes the development of a database for the cost of inpatient rehabilitation, mental health, and long-term care stays in the Department of Veterans Affairs from fiscal year 1998 forward. Using "bedsection," which is analogous to a hospital ward, the authors categorize inpatient services into nine categories: rehabilitation, blind rehabilitation, spinal cord injury, psychiatry, substance abuse, intermediate medicine, domiciliary, psychosocial residential rehabilitation, and nursing home. For each of the nine categories, they estimated a national and a local (i.e., medical center) average per them cost. The nursing home average per them costs were adjusted for case mix using patient assessment information. Encounter-level costs were then calculated by multiplying the average per them cost by the number of days of stay in the fiscal year. The national cost estimates are more reliable than the local cost estimates.