Health care utilization for premature ventricular complexes in acute settings.

BACKGROUND: Premature ventricular complexes (PVCs) are common; however, their burden in acute health care settings is not well characterized. In parallel, therapies, particularly catheter ablation, have evolved, but contemporary trends in utilization remain unclear. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the trends in health care utilization for PVCs. METHODS: We conducted an analysis of California statewide health care data from 2016 to 2022, including adults aged ≥18 years seen in an ambulatory surgery unit, emergency department, or inpatient hospital. PVCs and comorbidities were identified using International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) codes as primary or secondary diagnoses, and catheter ablation using ICD-10-Procedure Coding System and Current Procedural Terminology codes. RESULTS: Among 87,819,413 health care encounters from 20,280,466 adults, 235,848 (0.27%) included a PVC diagnosis and 22,806 (0.03%) had PVCs as a primary diagnosis. Patients with PVCs were older, more often male, and white, and had more cardiovascular comorbidities. The proportion of encounters with PVCs increased from 0.19% in 2016 to 0.31% in 2022. Encounters with PVCs as the primary diagnosis rose from 0.023% to 0.029%. Between 2016 and 2022, 3394 catheter ablations for PVCs were performed, nearly doubling from 343 in 2016 to 619 in 2022. Of the 21,265 patients who had at least 1 principal diagnosis of PVCs, 3278 (15.4%) underwent catheter ablation for PVCs. Ablation recipients were older, predominantly male, and white, and had greater cardiovascular comorbidity. CONCLUSION: PVCs, though infrequently coded as a primary diagnosis, are increasingly recognized in acute health care settings. The doubling of ablation procedures underscores growing clinical attention and the expanding role of interventional management, particularly among high-risk patients.