Cost of
Saving Babies
Healthy Babies, Healthy Business was designed to help you
to enhance your existing wellness programs and to offer our
content to your employees. Based on internal and externally
conducted research, we know that reducing health care costs
is a major factor when cost justifying these types of programs.
That's why our program is free.
We are keenly aware of the financial and emotional costs involved
with having a premature or unhealthy baby and want to help
you mitigate health care costs by enhancing employee education.
Prematurity takes a devastating physical toll on babies.
It robs families of the full potential of their beloved children,
society of future leaders, and our nation of strong and healthy
citizens. And it places a tremendous financial burden on everyone,
including our health systems, businesses and society as a
whole.
Did you know?
- On average, hospital charges for newborns without complications
run $1,300 while those for hospital stays for infants with
a principal diagnosis of prematurity average a startling
$75,000 1
- In 2001, hospital charges for all infants totaled $29.3
billion
- Nearly half of that, $13.6
billion - was for babies with ANY diagnosis of prematurity
Longer Hospital Stays = Higher Costs
- Consider the following statstics on the average length
of infant hospital stays:
- 1.9 days for uncomplicated newborns
- 12.9 days for infants with any diagnosis of prematurity
- 24.7 days for infants with a principal diagnosis of
prematurity
Who Pays the Bill?
You do. All health care payers - public and private - share
the cost of caring for premature babies. Employers and other
private health plans are responsible for half the total hospital
bill for prematurity, and the federal/state Medicaid program
also bears a large share of the cost.1
| Case
Study |
From Healthy Workforce
2010:
Sunbeam-Oster Co. saw its maternal and newborn case
costs decline by 86% in just two years by providing
mandatory prenatal care classes for pregnant employees.
[Read
More...] |
And the Costs Mount
About 25 percent of the youngest and smallest babies who
"graduate" from NICU care live with long-term health
problems, including cerebral palsy, blindness and chronic
conditions.2 A study recently published in the
Journal of the American Medical Association found that
children born prematurely were at greater risk for lower cognitive
test scores and behavioral problems when compared to full-term
children.3
Finding Answers
Premature birth can happen to any pregnant woman and, in
nearly half the cases, no one knows why. The March of Dimes
has launched a national, $75 million campaign to take on this
devastating problem, to find out what causes it and how it
can be stopped. Learn more about the Prematurity
Campaign.
1 Figures calculated by the March of Dimes
Perinatal Data Center using data from the Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality, Nationwide Inpatient Sample, 2001. Estimates
of inpatient stays and hospital charges for prematurity are
based on stays with a diagnosis of premaurity/low birthweight.
2 Hack M, Flannery DJ,
Schluchter M, et al. Outcomes in young adulthood for very-low-birth-weight
infants. N Engl J Med. 2002;346:149-157.
3 Bhutta et al. Cognitive and behavioral outcomes
of school-aged children who were born preterm. JAMA. 2002;288:728-737. |
