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Charts 1-4 



Charts 1 and 2 summarize the impaa of substance abuse on Medicaid inpatient hospital 

 utilization and costs. Charts 3 and 4 break down these results by substance and by the short and 

 long-term savings that can be accnied as a result of reducing substance abuse. 



Substance abuse-related hospital care accounted for 19.2% of total Medicaid hospital costs and 

 20% of total days in 1991. The reason for the discrepancy between the percentage of costs and 

 days is that some of the days are in psychiatric hospitals which have a lower average cost per 

 day than that of acute care, general hospitals. 



Chart 3 breaks down substance abuse-related costs by the substance involved. Tobacco and 

 illicit drugs contribute more to Medicaid hospital costs than alcohol. The unexpectedly high 

 proportion of hospitalizations attributed to illicit dnig use is due to birth complications resulting 

 from cocaine use (Phibbs et al). Since Medicaid disproportionately serves women and children, 

 a very large share of overall Medicaid hospitalization costs are, therefore, for births and biith 

 complications. 



The dnig-related costs associated with birth complications may be somewhat overstated: while 

 a significant portion of these costs were attributable to dnigs, some may also be attributable to 

 alcohol since many drug addicts also abuse alcohol. The high correlation between drug and 

 alcohol use among these pregnant women makes it hard to separate out the effects or determine 



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