inpatient

What is the meaning of inpatient?

Being an inpatient means you’re admitted to a hospital or other medical facility and staying overnight for at least one night. Inpatient care is the medical care provided to someone who is admitted as an inpatient.

Inpatient care can be planned – examples are childbirth or a scheduled surgery – or unexpected, such as a sudden cardiac event or a serious car accident.

If you’re admitted for inpatient hospital services, you receive around-the-clock monitoring and care, provided by doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals.

If you don’t need the level of care that comes with being an inpatient, you can be treated on an outpatient basis instead. Unlike inpatient care, outpatient care does not include being admitted to the hospital. Outpatient care can be as simple as an office visit.  Two-thirds of all surgeries are now completed on an outpatient basis.¹ Inpatient care is only needed if medical staff determine that the patient needs to be admitted for full-time care.

If I stay overnight in the hospital is that always inpatient care?

No, not necessarily. Depending on your medical needs, you might be placed on observation status – which is a type of outpatient care – even though you’re spending the night in the hospital. Depending on your health coverage, your costs might be different for inpatient versus observation care.

How much does inpatient care cost?

According to HealthCare.gov, the average cost of a three-day hospital stay without health insurance is about $30,000.²

But as long as the person has ACA-compliant major medical health insurance and goes to an in-network hospital, their total out-of-pocket costs will be capped at no more than $9,200 in 2025.³

Some plans have annual out-of-pocket caps well below that, and the specifics vary significantly from one plan to another. But inpatient care will generally require the patient to pay their deductible, and then coinsurance until the plan’s out-of-pocket maximum is reached.