Infections also drove up the costs for commercial insurers, which were billed an additional $603.8 million to care for such patients, the report said.
"The financial toll of potentially preventable hospital-acquired infections is staggering," said Marc P. Volavka, executive director of the cost containment council. Volavka added that if hospitals elsewhere in the country had similar infection rates as Pennsylvania's, Medicare likely was billed about $20 billion extra in 2004.
While those numbers are enormous, hospital charges are rarely the actual amount paid by patients, insurers or government-run programs. Hospitals collect significantly less from Medicare, Medicaid and insurers than the amount billed for care.
Still, the cost-containment council's report suggests that hospital-acquired infections add billions of dollars each year to the nation's actual cost of health care.
Medicare spent $295.5 billion in the federal fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2004, and an estimated $326.7 billion in fiscal 2005, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
And the cost of infections is not just monetary.
In its second report on hospital-acquired infections, the cost-containment council noted that the problem was associated with 1,793 deaths - 1,510 more than expected deaths - and an extra 205,000 days patients spent in the hospital.
Pennsylvania is one of the few states that require hospitals to report infections patients contract during care. The cost-containment council's report does not show infection rates at specific hospitals.
Earlier this month, Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration reported risk adjustment of hospital infection and complication rates that included facility-specific data.
