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The Financial Cost of Parkinson’s Disease (Article from WE MOVE News) September 1, 2004 In 1997, researchers estimated that the annual economic burden associated with Parkinson’s disease (PD) in the United States was $25 billion. Through a recent multicenter collaboration, researchers calculated the direct medical costs associated with the treatment of PD among elderly people (average age, 72.7 years) who were covered by both Medicare and private insurance. The researchers used a database of insurance-claims information to identify 10,445 patients who met their criteria—patients who had had either two visits with a physician for the treatment of PD or one visit for treatment and two prescriptions for drugs to treat PD over an average of 675 days. The percentage of patients who were . . . Hospitalized 52.0% Admitted to a nursing home for short-term care 15.8% Required medical care after a fall or injury 42.5% Treated for dementia 12.0% Treated with antidepressant medication 45.2% Treated with antipsychotic medication 28.0% The total average cost for treating each patient with PD in this study was $16,634, with hospitalization accounting for $9,362 of that total and nursing-home care for rehabilitation (less than a 90-day stay) another $2,282. Some patients incurred far greater expenses than others. The average yearly cost of medical care for a patient without PD who is covered by Medicare is $6,711, which is less than half that of the population in this study. However, the numbers cannot be compared directly because while the PD patients had access to private insurance as well, the non-PD patients did not, and this may have affected the total expenditures in each group. Orsini LS, Castelli-Haley J, Kennedy S, Huse DM. Healthcare utilization and expenditures among privately insured patients with Parkinson’s disease in the United States. Presented at the 8th International Congress of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders in Rome, Italy, June 14-17, 2004, and published in Mov Disord 2004;19(suppl 9):145-146. SOURCE: We Move News http://tinyurl.com/6p7eg * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn