average hospital stay cost
1 The incremental costs incurred by patients on their last full day of hospital stay were $420 per day on average, or just 2.4 percent of the $17,734 average total cost.2  End-of-stay costs represented only a slightly higher percentage of total costs when the length of stay was as short as four days. The remaining 58 percent was hospital overhead. 2  The first day of admission cost $1,246 on average, while the cost of discharging a patient averaged $304. 3  Approximately 40 percent of the costs were incurred during the first 3 days.