The cost of care for various chronic disease is a growing concern (see: Seeking Solutions to the Chronic Disease Epidemic, Cost Savings Associated with Home-Based Physiologic Monitoring) with a special focus on diabetes (see: The Staggering Cost of Treating Diabetes, Mandatory Pre-employment Lab Testing for Acute or Chronic Disease). Now comes an article discussing the cost of undiagnosed cases of diabetes (see: Costs Are High From Undiagnosed Diabetes). This new idea poses a number of interesting issues and challenges. Below is an excerpt from the article with boldface emphasis mine:
Scientists used data from more than 3 million people included in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to estimate costs and numbers of people in the U.S. with undiagnosed diabetes, tabulating bills for treatment of various symptoms of the disease.... [R]esearchers say their calculations suggest that about 6.3 million adults -- about a fourth of the people in the U.S. with diabetes -- have the disease but haven't been diagnosed. This undiagnosed population accounts for about $18 billion in health care costs annually, the study shows. Researchers examined the health care use patterns of a group of people for the two-year period leading up to their diagnosis of diabetes. Diabetes costs the American economy about $174 billion in medical care expenses and lost productivity, based on calculations for 2007, the study shows. But that figure is a significant understatement, according to the researchers, who say costs related to undiagnosed people with diabetes could raise the total to more than $192 billion. Annual health care needs for people with undiagnosed diabetes tend to be higher than for people who do not have the disease, the study of the federal statistics indicated....The economic cost of undiagnosed diabetes is $2,864 per person.
To briefly summarize, diagnosed cases of diabetes account yearly for about $174 billion in healthcare costs. This includes medical care expenses and lost productivity. It has been estimated that the costs related to undiagnosed people with this disease could raise this total to more than $192 billion. Identifying these undiagnosed patients would save money in the long-run because their healthcare needs are higher. I suspect, however, that there will be little organized effort to identify members of this group. The obvious reason is that such surveillance programs consume healthcare dollars that can be devoted to the treatment of current diagnosed cases.
I have posted many previous notes to the topic of the web and PHRs as a vehicle for inexpensively communicating public health messages and alerts to the general public (see: Increasing Patient Involvement with Their Personal Health Issues, Paging Dr. Google! We Are Waiting for a Second Opinion). Cell phones are another platform for the transmission of such messages, although active cell phone users tend to skew toward a younger population (see: Younger Web Users as Both Consumers and Conduits of Information). Perhaps we can look forward to public health education campaigns to reach out to undiagnosed diabetics using less expensive and perhaps more effective channels such as the web, PHRs, and cell phones.
Comments