Health insurance coverage makes a big difference in the amount of time patients are treated in the hospital for a gunshot wound — an injury that’s seen in an American emergency room every 30 minutes.
In Florida, uninsured patients admitted for gunshot wounds spend fewer days on average in the hospital than those with health insurance, according to a new analysis of hospital data by KFF Health News and The Trace.
Uninsured patients made up a quarter of the more than 20,000 gunshot wound hospitalizations identified in Florida from 2018 to 2024, making them the largest single group treated for firearm injuries, according to the analysis.
Those who were uninsured had hospital stays of about six days on average, only three-quarters of the time spent by patients with private insurance and less than half the average stay for patients on traditional Medicaid, the public health insurance program for poor and disabled people.
Among the most severely injured patients, the uninsured stayed three fewer days in the hospital on average than their counterparts with insurance.
Nearly half the gunshot wound patients were Black, making the group highly overrepresented. About a quarter of nonwhite patients were uninsured, versus fewer than a fifth of white patients
Tens of thousands of people die from firearm injuries every year in the U.S. Far more people survive their wounds, but their plight is discussed far less, said Elinore Kaufman, a trauma surgeon and assistant professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania.
“Survivors have all these challenges,” Kaufman said. “Even a flesh wound can bleed, ooze, and be painful. These experiences are common, but they are not talked about.”
For Alea Bates of Tallahassee, Florida, four days in the hospital were not enough to recover from being shot seven times at close range in December 2019. Bates was working as an Uber Eats driver when a stranger with a gun opened fire. She did not have health insurance.
At Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, surgeons removed bullets from her body and prescribed physical therapy while she was there.
But Bates said she wasn’t ready to leave when the hospital discharged her. She complained of intense pain in her left leg, weakness in her knee, and a numbing sensation below it, medical records show
Still, Bates said, doctors did not do more to address her pain.
“They were just like, you know, ‘It’ll go away. It’ll go back to normal,’” she said.
Sarah Cannon, communications director at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, declined an interview request and would not address Bates’ account of her care.
“We do not make care decisions, including discharge appropriateness, based on a patient’s insurance status or ability to pay for services,” she said in an email
Daniel Changdchang@kff.org
Fred Clasen-Kellyfredck@kff.org
