Healthcare expenditures and burden among women with disabilities

Background/Significance: More women are living with disability, requiring both primary and specialty care for disability-related issues; however, their healthcare expenditures, out-of-pocket expenditures (OOPE) and out-of-pocket expenditures burden (OOPB) are not well understood.

Objective/Purpose: Analyze the growth of overall healthcare expenditures, the OOPE and the OOPB among women with disabilities.

Methods: Secondary data analyses of household component files of the nationally representative 1996 and 2004 Medical Expenditures Panel Survey (MEPS) were used to examine trends in healthcare expenditures among women. Sample consisted of 5,780 (1996) and 8,880 (2004) women ages 22- 61 years. Disability was defined in two ways: self-reported activity limitations and functional limitations. Dependent variables were total, OOPE, and percent income spent. Regression techniques were used to examine the trend in expenditures. All analyses accounted for the complex design of the MEPS.

Results: Overall, the percent women with disability increased from 7% in 1996 (n = 446) to 10% in 2004 (n = 1,053). Average healthcare expenditures were higher for women with disability in both years ($9,621 versus $2,856 in 2004). The same was true for OOPE ($1,687 versus $692 in 2004). We did not observe a disproportionate growth in total or OOPE between the two groups over time. OOPB was not different between the two groups.

Conclusion: Across all years, women with disabilities had greater total and OOPE compared to women without disability, suggesting there are additional healthcare costs associated with disability. However, OOPB expressed as income spent on OOPE was not different between the two groups.