How Long Do People Stay in The Hospital?

A serious injury puts you in the hospital. Maybe you get injured by a defective product. Maybe you get hit by a drunk driver. Maybe you get injured on the job, falling from a ladder while working in the construction industry.

No matter how the injury happens, what you wonder is just how long you’re going to stay in the hospital. What is that going to cost?

Of course, every hospital stay is different. It depends on the severity of the injury, the type of medical care you need, whether you experience any complications and much more. However, you can look at some of the average statistics to get a sense of how long people tend to stay.

What you’ll find is that the average length of a hospital stay depends, to a large degree, on your age. The mean length of a stay for a child between the ages of 1 and 17, for instance, is 4.2 days. For an adult between the ages of 18 and 44, it falls to 3.8 days. For slightly older adults, between the ages of 45 and 64, it rises to 5.1 days.

Part of the reason for this is your overall health before you end up in the hospital. Children and older adults tend to have more fragile immune systems and they may have pre-existing conditions that can increase the length of a stay when compared to a healthy, young or middle-aged adult.

No matter how long you stay, the reality is that it is going to get expensive when you start spending nights in the hospital. Be sure you know if you have a right to compensation for your injury.