Fig 1.
Total emergency department spending per year by disposition, 2006–2016.
Fig 2.
Emergency department spending across aggregated age groups, payer, and aggregated health categories, 2016 ($ billions).
Table 1.
Changes in overall Emergency Department (ED) spending and ED spending per visit over time for the 25 health conditions with the most ED spending in 2016.
Fig 3.
Arrow diagram summarizing the 15 individual health conditions with highest estimated emergency department spending levels in 2006 and 2016.
Note: Health conditions are ranked by estimated ED spending in both 2006 and 2016 (both using 2016 USD) and placement in the ranking is illustrated in the arrow diagram. Each of the 154 health conditions captured by the Disease Expenditure Project (DEX) map to 1 of 15 aggregated cause groups (or referred to as 15 aggregated health categories), which are shown in the legend and displayed in Fig 1. Of note, ED spending estimates were mapped to only 150 of the 154 DEX conditions, as four health conditions (larynx cancer, well newborn care, well dental, and well person) either did not appear in the ED data or were systematically excluded as a primary diagnosis.
Fig 4.
Emergency department spending per visit overall and for the 5 health conditions with the most ED spending in 2016.