en Health Management and Economics Health Management and Economics Original Research Original Research <p><span style="font-size:13pt"><em><strong><span style="font-size:9.0pt">Background: </span></strong><span style="font-size:9.0pt">COVID-19 pandemic imposes a substantial medical and socioeconomic burden on health systems. The study aimed to estimate the direct inpatient costs of COVID-19 in Iran.</span></em></span><br> <span style="font-size:13pt"><em><span style="font-size:9.0pt">&nbsp;&nbsp; <strong>Methods:</strong> This is a Cost of Illness (COI) study with the bottom-up method. Provider perspective and prevalence approach were applied for cost identification. Data included inpatient charges and clinical characteristics of all COVID-19 cases (2015 patients) admitted to a teaching hospital during a financial year (March 2020 to February 2021). We extracted data from Hospital Information System (HIS) and applied the quantile regression to estimate determinant factors of COVID-19 inpatient cost using STATA software. </span></em></span><br> <span style="font-size:13pt"><em><span style="font-size:9.0pt">&nbsp; &nbsp;<strong>Results:</strong> 1026 (50.92%) of admitted COVID-19 patients were female, and 42.3% were older than 65 years. More than 82% of discharged COVID-19 patients in this study recovered. 189 (9.38%) patients admitted to ICUs. Length of Stay (LOS) for about 70% of admitted COVID-19 cases was 7 days or less. The Total Inpatient Charges (TIC) was 155,372,056,826 Rials (5,041,836 PPP USD). The median charge was 42,410,477 Rials, and Average Inpatient Charges (AIC) was 77,107,720&plusmn;110,051,702 (2,461 PPP USD) per person. Drugs and supplies accounted for 37% of total inpatient charges. Basic insurance companies would pay more than 79% of total claims and the share of Out-of-Pocket Payments (OOP) was 7%. ICUs admission and LOS of more than 3 days are associated with higher costs across all percentiles of the cost distribution (</span><span style="font-size:9.0pt">p</span><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><0.001).</span></em></span><br> <span style="font-size:13pt"><em><span style="font-size:9.0pt">&nbsp;&nbsp; <strong>Conclusion:</strong> This study call attention to the substantial economic burden based on real-world data. According to the broad socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 and also multiple components of COI study designs, conducting meta-analysis approaches is needed to combine results from independent studies.</span></em></span></p> Hospital Economics, Hospital Costs, Cost of illnesses 759 764 http://mjiri.iums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-7326-1&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Masoud Khandehroo masoud.khandehroo@gmail.com 200319475328460073034 200319475328460073034 No Social Development and Health Promotion Research Center, Gonabad University of Medical Sciences, Gonabad, Iran Mehdi Dorri emba110@yahoo.com 200319475328460073035 200319475328460073035 No Clinical Research Development Unit, Bohlool Hospital, Gonabad University of Medical Sciences, Gonabad, Iran Toktam Paykani paykani@gmail.com 200319475328460073036 200319475328460073036 No Social Development and Health Promotion Research Center, Gonabad University of Medical Sciences, Gonabad, Iran Abdoljavad Khajavi abjkhajavi@yahoo.com 200319475328460073037 200319475328460073037 No Department of Community Medicine, School of Medicine, Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Gonabad University of Medical Sciences, Gonabad, Iran Morteza Joshani-Kheibari m.joshani@chmail.ir 200319475328460073038 200319475328460073038 No Health Services Management, Tehran Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran Reza Esmaeili esmaeili.r@gmu.ac.ir 200319475328460073039 200319475328460073039 Yes Department of Public Health, School of Health, Social Development and Health Promotion Research Center, Gonabad University of Medical Sciences, Gonabad, Iran