Avoidable Emergency Department Costs

Emergency Department (ED) visits are amongst the most costly components of health care delivery in Georgia. Many ED visits are avoidable, however, either through use of lower acuity care settings or prevention through primary care. Using Georgia APCD data and a well established ED avoidable costs methodology, we estimated that in 2022 over 40% of ED visits in Georgia may have been avoidable. This equates to 1.3 million avoidable ED visits, and $307 million avoidable ED costs. See the infographic below for more information.