New Britain herald., 1930-08-21
Average Person Spends S5.S1 a Day While in Hospital, While Weekly Salary Is Less Than S6O Extra Costs Bring, ,Ex- penses Higher.

New York, August 21 (uP)-The average person who goes to d hos pital pays s5.S1 a day, according to a survey completed by the United Press today in representative cities.
 His costs cannot be much lower than that and the probability is that they will be a great deal higher. The s5.S1--representing an average of all types of service in various cities-does not include the ex- penses incurred by an operation or money paid out for special nursing privileges. Nor does it include the cost of medicines and the fees of physicians and surgeons.
 The s5.81 estimate compares with one of s5.35 which the American Hospital Association of Chicago found to be the average cost of hos pitalization m a survey of 30 insti tutions. The same association sur yeyed 2,716 hospitals in all parts of the United States and found the average income of the patients was S5926 per week.
 Thus, each patient in a hospital, spends on an average between S35 and $40 a week out of a salary less than S6O. When Nhis special costs are figured. it is apparent that his salary cannot be expected to meet the costs of his illness.
 In Kansas City, Mo-, it is possible for a patient to pay only S2 q day If he enters a ward occupied by three other persons. That is the minimum charge revealed by the survey. In some cities the minimum cost is s4 and the average for all cities in the survey is $3.lS. The cost of semi-priyate rooms ranged from s4 to S6. the average being s461. For private rooms in general hospitals, the cost is from s7 to S14.50 with an average of s9.64.
 Some Have Sliding Scales
 Most of the hospitals included in the survey will take charity patients and many of them have sliding scale of prices based on the income of the patient
 In a Cleveland hospital an inves- tigator is kept busy determining the income of patients and apport1oning the percentage of/rhe full costs that the person in question can afford to pay
 Kansas City, hospitals judge each case on it's merits. The same method prevails in a representative St. Louis hospital.
 In san> >Francisco Ae tendency is to accept charity patients only on the recommendation of the con- munity chest or the hospitals own social service department. One hos pital in Columbus reports it accepts all emergency cases and investigates later their ability to pay. About 25 per cent of the emergency patients are capable of paying, it was report led.
 New York city costs are slightly higher than in other cities but the higher living costs here rather than to any policy of the hospitals.
 Extra Expenses Run High
 Beyond the flat room Or ward" hate, it is difficult to compute the post of sickness, hospital authorities Faid. Medicines vary too much in lost and the fee of physicians and Furgeons is not sufficiently standard zed, they explained.
 In cases where an operation is oin- 1ergone, there is Invariably an extra charge for the use of the operating oom. That varies from s7 to s20 with the average being somewhere pear sl0 in hospitals whose rates are reasonable enough to permit occu- bancy by the general public,
 There is a general tendency, ac- fording to the committee on the lost of medical care at Washington 0 plan hospitals SC there will be mple accommodations for the per on of moderate means.
 >"One hundred and twenty-one ospitals out of 132 whose letters ell of future plans include the pro. ision of special facilities for pa. tents of moderate means" says 2 amphlet issued by the committee Twenty-one hospitals reported that heir contemplated new construc- on is to be primarily for the use such patients