Ear infections, the most common ailment in all children, cost the U.S. healthcare system $3 billion annually, according to research from Los Angeles-based UCLA and Cambridge, Mass.-based Harvard University published in The Laryngoscope.
Researchers analyzed 81.5 million pediatric health records from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's 2009 Medicare Expenditure Panel Survey. Of the children whose records were included, 8.7 million had been treated for an ear infection that year.
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Children who had been diagnosed with an ear infection on average made two more outpatient visits and 0.2 emergency visits and had 1.6 more prescriptions filled than children without ear infections that year. The annual per-child cost of this additional care was $317, with an additional $17 in medication.
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