Definition: Number of hospital discharges among children ages 0-17, excluding newborns, by source of payment (e.g., among hospital discharges for California children in 2017, Medi-Cal covered the expenses for 125,263 of those hospitalizations).Percentage of hospital discharges among children ages 0-17, excluding newborns, by source of payment (e.g., among hospital discharges for California children in 2017, Medi-Cal covered the expenses for 55.1% of those hospitalizations).
Footnote: Data are based on the number of hospitalizations, not the number of children hospitalized. Data are limited to hospital admissions; emergency room visits that do not result in admission are excluded. A glossary with detailed definitions of each source of payment can be found here. County-level data reflect the patient's county of residence, not the county in which the hospitalization occurred. Cases with unknown county of residence are included in California totals. Data are excluded for cases of patients with erroneous birth dates and for erroneous, unknown, or unreported sources of payment. For years prior to 2014, the notation S refers to data that have been suppressed because there were fewer than 5 cases or the percentage was less than 0.1. For years 2014 and later, S refers to data that have been suppressed because there were fewer than 11 cases, the percentage was less than 0.1, or to prevent disclosure of patient identity. N/A means that data are not available. Changes to admissions coding in 2017 could introduce variation in the exclusion of newborn cases; for more information, see the California Inpatient Data Reporting Manual.