Each year, firearm-related injuries lead to roughly 30,000 inpatient hospital stays and 50,000 emergency room visits, which generates more than $1 billion in medical costs, an Urban Institute report found.
Firearm injuries cost an average of $6,400 per patient in initial costs and often leave victims with medical bills that increase $2,495 per person per month in the year following the injury.
Here are six more stats to know:
- Medicaid and other public insurance programs cover most firearm-related injury costs.
- In 2020 alone, deaths from gun-related injuries cost $290 million.
- Survivors are more likely to develop mental health conditions and substance use disorders.
- Women are significantly more likely to be killed by a firearm in the U.S. than other high-income countries.
- Of people admitted to hospitals for firearm injuries, 52 percent are Black, 29 percent are white and 14 percent are Hispanic.
- The American South has the largest share of inpatient hospital stays and highest percentage of overall hospital costs for firearm injuries of any region.