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Can you explain why one ICU room costs millions, and why they cost 10k a day even if no one is in them? Neither makes sense to me. I can imagine say 100k in mon

Can you explain why one ICU room costs millions, and why they cost 10k a day even if no one is in them? Neither makes sense to me. I can imagine say 100k in monitoring equipment in a room. Maybe it's the hospital inflation applied to equipment?

Dma54rhs 4y ago
For one American medical workers earn absolute insane wages compared to their European counterparts.
db48x 4y ago
Most of the cost is people. It’s not much use calling it an ICU room unless there are doctors and nurses and anesthesiologists and other specialists on call to actually care for people intensively. Plus a janitor or two.
duffpkg 4y ago
An ICU unit isn't exactly a single room. There are different configurations but they typically involve some sort of centralized monitoring station and 5-20 ICU "beds". Total cost of that / number of beds. Everything in hospital construction is expensive, ICUs are at the extreme end of that. Huge power requirements, medical gas lines, fixturing and surfaces needs to be able to be disinfected, special air, special water, on and on. It has requirements very similar to an operating theatre. The reason they cost so much even if no one is in them is because of what a "bed" means. It isn't the literal bed, it is a unit a treatable/treating capacity. Requiements vary somewhat by jurisdiction but it's going to mean 24/7/365 nursing and attending doctor staff. You can't just call them in when a patient shows up, they need to be scheduled and available. Then ICUs will also need a large cadre of oncall specialists, neurologists, cardiac, laboratory testing staff, and on an on to cover a huge range of possible patient needs. Stocked blood units, stocked medicine units. All those things have costs whether a patient in in the bed or not. Hospitals to a large extent spend an incredible amount of money on capacity. No wants wants to end up in a hospital to have them say, "oops, we didn't expect your spleen to rupture today, Dr. Bob won't be in till next tuesday so you are out of luck, sorry"
- throwaway892238 4y ago
  So, they're complicated, they're expensive, they're necessary... why don't we have the state pay for them? We spend 720 Billion dollars on the military. Would it be useful to send a couple of those billion to make ICUs less expensive?
  - NegativeLatency 4y ago
    Yes it would, but in the US we have a for profit medical system so this is a natural result of that.
  - xyzzyz 4y ago
    Where do you think state money comes from? Even if it’s the government that foots the bill for ICUs, in the end it will still be paid collectively by all of us regular people.
    - ThePadawan 4y ago
      Well good thing regular people don't ever need to use ICUs.
      - MichaelZuo 4y ago
        Did you reply to the wrong comment?
        ThePadawan 4y ago
        No. In case it was unclear, I was being sarcastic in my reply and pointing out the hypocrisy of being offended that "regular people" would have to foot the bill for ICUs - as if they weren't the ones relying on their existence.
        xyzzyz 4y ago
        I am not offended that regular people would foot the bill for ICUs if state decides to pay for those. My point is that I do not see why it would be an improvement in any way over the status quo. It will not make them cheaper or more available, most likely quite the opposite.

Dma54rhs 4y ago

For one American medical workers earn absolute insane wages compared to their European counterparts.

db48x 4y ago

Most of the cost is people. It’s not much use calling it an ICU room unless there are doctors and nurses and anesthesiologists and other specialists on call to actually care for people intensively. Plus a janitor or two.

duffpkg 4y ago

An ICU unit isn't exactly a single room. There are different configurations but they typically involve some sort of centralized monitoring station and 5-20 ICU "beds". Total cost of that / number of beds. Everything in hospital construction is expensive, ICUs are at the extreme end of that. Huge power requirements, medical gas lines, fixturing and surfaces needs to be able to be disinfected, special air, special water, on and on. It has requirements very similar to an operating theatre. The reason they cost so much even if no one is in them is because of what a "bed" means. It isn't the literal bed, it is a unit a treatable/treating capacity. Requiements vary somewhat by jurisdiction but it's going to mean 24/7/365 nursing and attending doctor staff. You can't just call them in when a patient shows up, they need to be scheduled and available. Then ICUs will also need a large cadre of oncall specialists, neurologists, cardiac, laboratory testing staff, and on an on to cover a huge range of possible patient needs. Stocked blood units, stocked medicine units. All those things have costs whether a patient in in the bed or not. Hospitals to a large extent spend an incredible amount of money on capacity. No wants wants to end up in a hospital to have them say, "oops, we didn't expect your spleen to rupture today, Dr. Bob won't be in till next tuesday so you are out of luck, sorry"

throwaway892238 4y ago
So, they're complicated, they're expensive, they're necessary... why don't we have the state pay for them? We spend 720 Billion dollars on the military. Would it be useful to send a couple of those billion to make ICUs less expensive?
- NegativeLatency 4y ago
  Yes it would, but in the US we have a for profit medical system so this is a natural result of that.
- xyzzyz 4y ago
  Where do you think state money comes from? Even if it’s the government that foots the bill for ICUs, in the end it will still be paid collectively by all of us regular people.
  - ThePadawan 4y ago
    Well good thing regular people don't ever need to use ICUs.
    - MichaelZuo 4y ago
      Did you reply to the wrong comment?
      - ThePadawan 4y ago
        No. In case it was unclear, I was being sarcastic in my reply and pointing out the hypocrisy of being offended that "regular people" would have to foot the bill for ICUs - as if they weren't the ones relying on their existence.
        xyzzyz 4y ago
        I am not offended that regular people would foot the bill for ICUs if state decides to pay for those. My point is that I do not see why it would be an improvement in any way over the status quo. It will not make them cheaper or more available, most likely quite the opposite.