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Patients with diabetes face higher health care costs
Patients living with diabetes incur significantly higher health care costs, the majority of which resulted from hospital inpatient stays and prescription costs, compared with people without diabetes, according to recent study findings.
In the retrospective study, Leonard E. Egede, MD, MS, of the Medical University of South Carolina, and colleagues used the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Household Component (MEPS-HC) to assess a weighted population representing 189,013,514 adults aged 17 years and older from 2002 to 2011. The MEPS offers nationally representative approximations of health care utilization, expenses, payment sources and health insurance coverage for the U.S. civilian community-dwelling population.
Researchers pooled 10 years of data and adjusted the analytic sampling weight variable by dividing with the number of years pooled. The sum of the adjusted weights was defined as the average annual population for those years. Direct health care expenditure for the calendar year for each individual was defined as the dependent variable.
The primary independent variable was diabetes as determine through patient self-report. The researchers adjusted for age, sex, race, education, health insurance, metropolitan statistical area, region and level of income, as well as for comorbidities, including hypertension, cardiovascular disease, stroke, emphysema, joint pain, arthritis and asthma.
Participants with diabetes had more than twice the unadjusted mean direct expenses over the 10-year course of the study ($12,180) compared with participants without diabetes ($5,058).
Adjustment for confounding factors revealed significantly higher incremental expenditures associated with participants with diabetes ($2,558) compared with those without diabetes.
Participants with diabetes experience an initial increase in inpatient expenses from $4,014 in 2002/2003 to $4,183 in 2004/2005, but there was a steady decrease to $3,443 in 2010/2011. There was a continuous increase in inpatient expenditures among patients without diabetes over the study interval.
“In conclusion, our findings show that compared with individuals without diabetes, individuals with diabetes had significantly higher health expenditures from 2002 to 2011, and the bulk of the expenditures came from hospital inpatient and prescription expenditures,” the researchers wrote. “We show that diabetes is an important driver of cost in the U.S. population, and based on the average yearly estimate, unadjusted total direct health care expenditures for diabetes in the U.S. population were $218.6 billion/year and the adjusted total expenditures were approximately $46 billion/year. These figures represent potential savings from interventions to improve prevention and management of diabetes in the U.S. civilian population.” – by Jennifer Byrne
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.