The Prevalence of Chronic Conditions and Medical Expenditures of the Elderly by Chronic Condition Indicator (Cci)
Resource
ARCHIVES OF GERONTOLOGY AND GERIATRICS v.52 n.3 pp.284-289
Journal
Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics
Pages
284-289
Date Issued
2011
Date
2011
Author(s)
Chi, Mei-ju
Lee, Cheng-yi
Wu, Shwu-chong
Abstract
The aim of this study was to understand the prevalence of chronic conditions and medical expenditures of the elderly for health care planning development of chronic conditions. This research is based on the representative sample (N = 114 ,873) of seniors over 65 years nationwide. The CCI by the U. S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and clinical classifications software (CCS) were adopted to determine chronic condition diagnosis codes and classify the diseases. The results are presented by descriptive and multiple regression analysis. The chronic condition prevalence for seniors is 70.4% and the medical expenditures for seniors with chronic conditions accounts for 92.7% of the total medical expenditures for seniors, while 25% of the medical expenditure is spent on 8.2% of seniors who have five chronic conditions and above. Chronic conditions suffered by the elderly, in the order of its prevalence , are hypertension (36.1%), COPD (23.7%), and cataracts (16.7%). From the viewpoint of annual average medical expenditures, cardiovascular diseases rank the most costly diseases, with average medical expenditures as high as $4291. Urinary disease and diabetes ranks the second and the third most costly with an average expenditure of $3644 and $3594. This research showed that the average medical expenditure for seniors with chronic conditions is 5.4 times higher compared with seniors without chronic conditions. It is recommended to further study the characteristics of the target population that spends the most in medical expenditures to outline a more beneficial disease management model, reduce avoidable medical costs and achieve the goal of saving medical resources.
Subjects
Chronic condition indicator
Prevalence of chronic condition
Elderly of Taiwan
Other Subjects
aged; anxiety disorder; arthropathy; article; asthma; cardiovascular disease; cataract; cerebrovascular disease; chronic condition indicator; chronic disease; chronic obstructive lung disease; clinical indicator; controlled study; cost effectiveness analysis; data analysis software; diabetes mellitus; elderly care; female; gout; health care cost; health care quality; health care system; hepatitis; hospital patient; human; hypertension; major clinical study; male; osteoporosis; outpatient; population research; prevalence; priority journal; urinary tract disease; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Cardiovascular Diseases; Cataract; Chronic Disease; Comorbidity; Cost of Illness; Diabetes Mellitus; Female; Health Care Costs; Humans; Hypertension; Male; Prevalence; Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive; Taiwan; Urinary Tract Infections