Health-care costs of inner-city patients with asthma.

We estimated the health-care costs accrued by inner-city asthma patients over 1 year and identified patient characteristics associated with high cost patterns. The direct cost to the health-care provider of 1205 patients with an active diagnosis of asthma was $2.5 million, of which $888,000 (35.5%) was for asthma management. The average cost of an outpatient visit was $188, but was $3812 for a hospital admission. Outpatient visits for asthma comprised the largest volume of usage (96.2%) and the largest cost (55.4%). Although 104 hospital admissions of 84 patients (7%) comprised only 3.8% of the total encounters for asthma, they comprised 44.6% of asthma costs. Strategies emphasizing preventive care resulting in 20% greater outpatient costs would pay for themselves if they reduced inpatient admissions by 10%.