Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #100815

Gary L. Olin, PhD, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Center for Financing, Access, and Cost Trends, 540 Gaither Road, Rockville, MD 20850 and Jeffrey A. Rhoades, PhD, Center for Financing, Access and Cost Trends, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 540 Gaither Road, Rockville, MD 20850, 301-427-1471, jrhoades@ahrq.gov.

The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) collects extensive information on health care, expenses, sources of payment, and insurance coverage from a nationally representative sample of the U.S. civilian non-institutionalized population. Because survey respondents are also asked to report the reasons for and conditions associated with each of their medical encounters, the MEPS has become an increasingly popular source of information in studies of the cost of illness. We use the 2002 MEPS to illustrate three methods of estimating direct medical expenditures for hospitalizations, emergency room visits, outpatient hospital visits, office-based visits, prescribed medicines, and total medical expenditures associated with acute and chronic conditions and illnesses such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, cerebrovascular disease, arthritis, and asthma. The methods include (1) a straightforward accounting of treatment costs for conditions and illnesses identified by the sample population, (2) an attributable risk (epidemiologic) methodology that captures the cost of co-morbidities, and (3) a regression framework that predicts medical expenditures for people with and without a specific condition or illness. We use the results to highlight the impact of alternative methodologies and assumptions on direct medical cost estimates for selected acute and chronic conditions and illnesses, and to assess the strengths and weakness of using MEPS as the primary data source in each of the three approaches to estimating the cost of illness.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to

• List three different methodologies for determining the cost of illness.
• Articulate the strengths and weaknesses of the three different ways of determining the cost of illness as discussed in the presentation.
• Assess the strengths and weaknesses of using the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey for determining the cost of illness.

Keywords: Cost Issues, Methodology

Related Web page: www.meps.ahrq.gov

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation