Even though U.S. hospitals have reduced the number of available beds from 2006 to 2012, the average hospital occupancy rate still decreased from 64 percent to 61 percent during that same timeframe, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission's March 2014 report.
MedPAC said those figures continue to back up the notion that America is overbedded and that "inpatient capacity is expected to remain in excess in most markets even after accounting for increases in demand expected from the 2014 expansion of Medicaid and the introduction of the new mandate to purchase insurance."
Here are eight statistics on hospital bed capacity, based on MedPAC's report.
|
Capacity statistic |
2006 |
2012 |
|
National average hospital bed occupancy rate |
64% |
61% |
|
Number of available beds (per 1,000 people) |
2.8 |
2.6 |
|
Occupancy rate for urban hospitals |
67% |
64% |
|
Occupancy rate for rural hospitals |
48% |
43% |
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