Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is associated with higher mortality, morbidity, longer hospital stays and higher medical resource consumption. Little is known on the burden of AMR from a public health insurance perspective on a national level.

This investigation highlights the hospital costs of antibiotic resistance derived from a medico-administrative database. AMR costs were stratified per anatomical site and microorganism. These data provide a complete economic description of the hospital costs attributable to AMR from a payer perspective.

The economic weight of AMR, corresponding to 1,648,566 stays with infectious disease identified in the database, may amount up to 3.2% of total health expenditures. Such evaluation should inform discussions on the cost-benefit ratio of public health policies and incentivize decision makers to focus on this particular population with AMR infection to promote measures to prevent and control AMR.