Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2013 Jun;28(4):384-92.
doi: 10.1177/1533317513488911. Epub 2013 May 17.

The clinical and economic burden of newly diagnosed Alzheimer's disease in a medicare advantage population

Brandon T Suehs  1 , Cralen D Davis, Jose Alvir, Derek van Amerongen, Nick C Patel Pharmd, Ashish V Joshi, Warachal E Faison, Sonali N Shah
Affiliations

The clinical and economic burden of newly diagnosed Alzheimer's disease in a medicare advantage population

Brandon T Suehs et al. Am J Alzheimers Dis Other Demen. 2013 Jun.

Abstract

Background/rationale: Alzheimer's disease (AD) represents a serious public health issue affecting approximately 5.4 million individuals in the United States and is projected to affect up to 16 million by 2050. This study examined health care resource utilization (HCRU), costs, and comorbidity burden immediately preceding new diagnosis of AD and 2 years after diagnosis.

Methods: This study utilized a claims-based, retrospective cohort design. Medicare Advantage members newly diagnosed with AD (n = 3374) were compared to matched non-AD controls (n = 6748). All patients with AD were required to have 12 months of continuous enrollment prior to AD diagnosis (International Classification of Diseases, Clinical Modification [ICD-9] 331.0), during which time no diagnosis of AD, a related dementia, or an AD medication was observed. Non-AD controls demonstrated no diagnosis of AD, a related dementia, or a prescription claim for an AD medication treatment during their health plan enrollment. Medical and pharmacy claims data were used to measure HCRU, costs, and comorbidity burden over a period of 36 months (12 months pre-diagnosis and 24 months post-diagnosis).

Results: The HCRU and costs were greater for AD members during the year prior to diagnosis and during postdiagnosis years 1 and 2 compared to controls. The AD members also displayed greater comorbidity than their non-AD counterparts during postdiagnosis years 1 and 2, as measured by 2 different comorbidity indices.

Conclusions: Members newly diagnosed with AD demonstrated greater HCRU, health care costs, and comorbidity burden compared to matched non-AD controls.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; comorbidity burden; cost of care; health care resource utilization; medicare.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Suehs, Davis, and Patel are employees of Competitive Health Analytics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Humana Inc, and Suehs and Patel are stockholders of Humana, Inc. Van Amerongen is an employee of Humana, Inc. Shah, Alvir, and Faison are employees and stockholders of Pfizer Inc. At the time that this research was conducted, Joshi was an employee of Pfizer Inc.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Attrition flow chart for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) cohort patient selection.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Alzheimer's Association. 2012 Alzheimer's disease facts and figures. Alzheimers Dement. 2012;8(2):131–168. - PubMed
    1. Weiner M, Powe NR, Weller WE, Shaffer TJ, Anderson GF. Alzheimer's disease under managed care: implications from Medicare utilization and expenditure patterns. J Am Geriatr Soc. 1998;46(6):762–770. - PubMed
    1. Gutterman EM, Markowitz JS, Lewis B, Fillit H. Cost of Alzheimer's disease and related dementia in managed-medicare. J Am Geriatr Soc. 1999;47(9):1065–1071. - PubMed
    1. Menzin J, Lang K, Friedman M, Neumann P, Cummings JL. The economic cost of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias to the California medicaid program (“Medi-Cal”) in 1995. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 1999;7(4):300–308. - PubMed
    1. Richards KM, Shepherd MD, Lynn Crismon M, Snyder EH, Jermain DM. Medical services utilization and charge comparisons between elderly patients with and without Alzheimer's disease in a managed care organization. Clin Ther. 2000;22(6):775–791. - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources