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Direct Health Care Insurer and Out-of-Pocket Expenditures of Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Evidence from a US National Survey
Digestive Diseases and Sciences, 07/27/2012
Clinical Article
Gunnarsson C et al. – The direct costs associated with Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are substantial. The extent to which appropriate diagnosis and treatment reduces the total health care costs for individuals with CD or UC should be examined.
Methods- In a retrospective study using 1996 to 2009 data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, individuals’ self–reported health conditions were mapped to International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification diagnostic codes.
- Individuals with a code of 555.x (CD) or 556.x (UC) were identified. Health care services and costs included prescriptions and inpatient, outpatient, emergency room, office, and home health services.
- OOP costs were the portion of individuals’ total payments for health care services.
- There were 358 individuals with CD (mean age 49.0 years; 55 % female), 198 individuals with UC (mean age 47.1 years; 64 % female), and 206,993 individuals without inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) (mean age 48.2 years; 58 % female).
- Annual per capita health insurer and OOP costs for individuals with CD were greater than those without IBD (9526 versus 3,781, p < 0.001 and 1603 versus 866, p < 0.001, respectively).
- Health insurer and OOP costs were greater for UC compared with those without IBD (6443 versus 3,781, p < 0.001 and 1263 versus 866, p < 0.001, respectively).
- US national aggregate annual estimates of health insurer, OOP, and total direct costs secondary to CD are 204 billion 0.26 billion, and 229 billion respectively.
- Aggregate health insurer OOP and total direct costs attributable to UCare 0.53 billion, 007 billion and 0.61 billion, respectively.
