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Fall Cost Calculator

We encourage you to enter your own health care system’s fall information to calculate your facility’s fall costs. Below we provide example figures for a 400-bed hospital.

Fall information

Learn the best sources, helpful tips, and related examples for each required field below by clicking the question mark icon.

Injurious falls

falls

2-year period

Awarded fall claims

5-year period

Hospital stay extension due to falls

days

2-year period

Revenue lost due to injurious falls

5-year period

Hours prepping for regulatory surveys/visits

hrs

2-year period

Avg. hourly salary of staff involved in prepping for regulatory surveys/visits

hrs

2-year period

Investments related to equipment, staffing, and training for fall prevention

2-year period

Resource

Will It Work Here? A Decisionmaker’s Guide to Adopting Innovations. Content last reviewed February 2021. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. ahrq.gov/innovations/will-work/index.html

Results and information

18 falls

Resulting in injury requiring extended care

24 days

Additional hospitalization based on fall injuries

$42,320

2-year investment costs for injurious falls

$1,533,999

Average costs incurred by your health care system due to injurious falls over a 2-year period (using 5-year claim data)

Over the last two years, your healthcare system has experienced 18 fall(s) resulting in minor or major injury that resulted in extending their hospital visit(s) by 24 days at your location(s). Although top care for these injured patients is of utmost importance, theoretically the extended hospital visits could be prohibiting new patients from seeking the vital care they also need from your facility. Because you do not get reimbursed by insurance companies for attending to falls that occurred within your location(s) and that resulted in injury, not only does this present issues for potential new patients awaiting care, but it also hurts your health care system’s bottom line.

Additionally, it’s important to note your health care system is on average incurring $1,533,999 in costs due to injurious falls as well as investing $42,320 over a 2-year period (using 5-year claim data) – significantly impacting your system. With the help of the right evidence-based fall reduction program, this number can be properly evaluated and potentially reduced.

What to consider before presenting your results to team members, leaders, or management

When building a financial model to calculate the cost of injurious falls, it is important to determine who the stakeholder(s) are for the results. For example, when presenting to licensed  professionals, the elements that you stress will be different than if you are talking to a chief financial officer or chief executive officer. While everyone cares deeply about anyone sustaining an injury, how you organize and present the data may vary slightly. The results would never vary, but what you choose to highlight for the presentation or report may vary in length and complexity.

We understand the process of finding the right fall prevention program includes relaying your findings back to your team, leaders, or management group.

It’s best to be prepared with current data when presenting your consideration set, recommended program, and the importance of a fall prevention program to your health care system.

The Hendrich Fall Program© provides several tools to make this pursuit a bit easier, and Dr. Hendrich is available to talk through your results. Not only can we help you determine the cost of injurious falls with this calculator, but we also simplify the process of comparing different programs and creating a custom program package.

Why is learning the costs incurred by your health care system as a result of injurious falls important?

Wrapping your head around the full magnitude of injurious falls can be complicated, and many within your organization may not know just how large of an impact injurious falls are having on your health care system. Learning the costs of falls within your health care system can help you illustrate how large an impact falls are having on your system, its bottom line, and the patients you care for.

Data privacy: We take the privacy of your data very seriously. Because of this, we do not store or share any of the information you provide for the fall cost calculator. Please note that, because we do not store your information, your information must be entered during each use.

If for some reason you cannot obtain any portion of this data, please reach out to our team to assist you further by contacting us here.

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Investments related to equipment, staffing & training for fall reduction

Total dollar amount your health system invested related to equipment, staffing, and training to develop fall reduction competency over the last 2 years

Best Source(s): Supply Distribution and / or Contracting Department

Best Contact(s): CNO or Nursing Unit Manager

Tip(s): Try your best to include all costs, such as sitters, tele-sitting, bed monitors, competency training time, and more.

Example

  • Licensure Year One = $5,900
  • Training Year One = 800 hours x $28 (nurse avg. hourly rate)
  • Licensure Year Two = $3,500
  • Training Year Two = 300 hours x $28 (nurse avg. hourly rate)
  • Training equipment = $2,120

$42,320.00

Avg. Hourly Salary of Staff Involved in Prepping for Regulatory Surveys/Visits

Total number of hours spent surveying and prepping for regulatory surveys or visits within your health system over the last 2 years

Best Source(s): Job Category and Estimated Average Salary Report(s)

Best Contact(s): Human Resources

Tip(s): Once you have each job category’s average hourly salary, work with HR to create a combined hourly salary average.

Example

Parties involved and their hourly rate:

  • 2 Executives; $350/hour
  • 12 Managers; $84/hour
  • Quality Director; $90/hour
  • Regulatory Manager; $90/hour
  • Regulatory Director; $90/hour

*Because this measurement is weighted, add hourly salaries up for each individual involved then divide by total number of individuals involved.

$116.35

Hours Prepping for Regulatory Surveys/Visits

Total number of hours spent surveying and prepping for regulatory surveys or visits within your health system over the last 2 years

Best Source(s): Regulatory Survey findings or find online on The Joint Commission website

Best Contact(s): Chief Quality or Regulatory Officer

Tip(s): Make sure to work with your CFO or Finance Department when quantifying the loss of revenue related to denied claims.

Example

Parties involved and their hours:

  • 2 Executives; 16 hours each
  • 12 Managers; 48 hours each
  • Quality Director; 80 hours
  • Regulatory Manager; 40 hours
  • Regulatory Director; 160 hours

888 hours

Revenue Lost Due to Injurious Falls

Total dollar amount of revenue loss due to injurious fall incidents within your health system over the last 2 years

Best Contact(s): Medical Utilization Department or Leaders as well as Finance Department or Leaders

Tip(s): Make sure to work with your CFO or Finance Department when quantifying the loss of revenue related to denied claims.

Example

Each hip fracture costs this hospital on average $30,000 per surgery.

Minor injurious, such as concussions or head injury, costs do not incur surgery costs.

Each additional day patients must extend their stay costs the hospital $2,000.

$198,000.00

Hospital Stay Extension Due to Falls

Total number of days all combined patients were required to extend their stay at your health system due to the injurious fall incident over the last 2 years

Best Source(s): Administrative coded billing data sets (ICD-10) or DRG data

Best Contact(s): Medical Utilization Department or Leaders

Tip(s): This allows you to quantify occupancy or downsizing opportunity with hospital bed days.

Example

Patients are required to be monitored for 2.2 days on average after any surgery

Patients are required to be monitored 1 days after other minor injuries, such as bruising, potential or minor concussion, minor head injury, etc.

Based on all information above:

  • 5 hip fractures resulted in an extension of 2.2 day each
  • 13 minor injuries resulted in an extension of 1 days each

24 days

Awarded Fall Claims

Total dollar amount of awarded injurious fall claims within your health system over the last 5 years

Best Source(s): Self-insured program records or request to your external carrier sorted by falls and fall type

Tip(s): Make sure you are not understating the dollar amount by including total cash payout or jury awarded settlement. This should include payouts with or without jury involvement.

Example

Over the last five years, 19 falls have been awarded claims:

  • 7 were settled outside of court for $40,000
  • 4 were settled outside of court for $60,000
  • 6 went to trial and judge awarded $76,000
  • 2 went to trial and the jury awarded $149,500

$1,275,000.00

Injurious Falls

Total number of injurious falls within your health system over the last 2 years

Best Source(s): Incident Report or Event Reporting System

Tip(s): Make sure you are not inflating your count by including visitors or non-injury falls.

Example

  • 200 falls
  • 50% were admitted
  • 50% occurred within facility
  • 36% that occurred within facility resulted in hip fractures (15 falls) or other minor injuries (3 falls)

18 injurious falls