A lot of burn injuries in Colorado are actually pretty minor. A study in 2011 showed that people suffering from thermal burns were only out of work for five days, on average, while people with chemical burns missed just three days.
However, stats like this make things sound far less complex — and less expensive — than they really are. For those who have more severe burns and go over these averages, the costs can be higher than many people assume.
For example, the National Business Group on Health looked at the annual costs for treatment and found them to be $10.4 billion per year — and this was back in 2000. Plus, one has to consider that burns are a very minor blip in the hospital setting, only being noted in about 1 percent of cases, and the annual costs are still that high.
You may think that low-intensity treatment will come in with a nice cheap price tag, but studies have found that that’s just not the case. The cost is estimated to be at least $206,853. The average when the burns are deemed to be serious, but when complications don’t even arise during the process, jumps all the way to $1,617,345.
So, how much does it cost with complications and setbacks? The estimate is a staggering $10 million, and it comes with a reminder that it may go even higher than that.
For many people, even the least expensive treatments would be too costly to cover, and the most expensive could represent debt that would never be erased. If you’ve been burned in Colorado or Wyoming, be sure you know your rights to compensation.
Source: Paradigm Corp, “Treatment Costs of Severe Burn Injuries,” accessed Sep. 21, 2015