2.6.2. Healthcare Costs
Healthcare costs for the control and intervention groups were determined for six categories including total billed charges for any reason; cost of hospitalizations due to COVID-19; cost of ICU admissions due to COVID-19; cost of ventilator use due to COVID-19; medical pharmacy prescription costs for any reason; and freestanding prescription costs for any reason. All costs were determined by the billed charges for each category. The mean cost per person-day (standardized mean) was calculated for each category. Differences in standardized means between control and intervention groups were assessed using Wilcoxon rank sum tests to determine statistical significance. The alpha level was set at 0.05. All analyses were conducted using SAS 9.4 (SAS Institute, Inc., Cary, NC, USA).