Researchers say the trend highlights a need for hospitals to reassess testing protocols, as overuse of broad respiratory panels may be driving up costs without clear benefits to patient care. The analysis, led by researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, examined more than 5 million pediatric hospital encounters from 2016 to 2023.
Three key findings:
- Respiratory testing rates soared over the study period. While COVID-19 testing initially fueled the increase, high utilization of large-panel tests has persisted. Large-panel tests check for at least six pathogens, though cost more than single-virus and mid-level tests.
- Adjusted for inflation, total spending on respiratory pathogen testing increased from $20.6 million in 2016 to $111 million in 2022.
- The average-adjusted cost per encounter for respiratory testing more than tripled, from $34.20 in 2017 to $128.20 in 2022, largely driven by increased use of large-panel testing.
“These findings are likely to be interesting to clinicians and health policy professionals who could help drive future deimplementation efforts to make sure we approach testing through a lens of providing the most value to our patients and our health system,” Matthew Molloy, MD, lead study author and attending physician in the division of hospital medicine at Cincinnati Children’s, said in a blog post on the research.