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Greater medical care expenditures, earning losses found among patients with arthritis
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Patients with arthritis experienced greater medical care expenditures and earnings losses compared to patients without arthritis, according to recently published results.
“The high earnings losses were largely attributable to the substantially lower prevalence of working among those with arthritis compared with those without, signaling the need for interventions that keep people with arthritis in the work force,” the researchers wrote.
Using the 2013 U.S. Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data, researchers calculated arthritis-attributable and all-cause medical expenditures for adults, as well as arthritis-attributable earnings losses among patients aged 18 years to 64 years who had worked. Arthritis-attributable costs were calculated using multistage regression-based methods, and researchers conducted sensitivity analyses to estimate costs for two other arthritis definitions in Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data.
Results showed an estimated total national arthritis-attributable medical expenditure of $139.8 billion in 2013, of which ambulatory care expenditures accounted for nearly half of arthritis-attributable expenditures. Among all U.S. adults in the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data, researchers noted 51% of the $1.2 trillion national medical expenditures were represented by all-cause expenditures among adults with arthritis.
Researchers found an estimated total national arthritis-attributable earning loss of $163.7 billion in 2013. According to results, a lower percentage of patients with arthritis worked during the past year vs. patients without arthritis. Overall, results showed a total arthritis-attributable medical expenditure and earning loss of $303.5 billion. — by Casey Tingle
Disclosure s : The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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