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Diabetes Costs Hit $245B in 2012

 |  By John Commins  
   March 13, 2013

The nearly 22.3 million Americans who are diagnosed with diabetes cost $245 billion in medical care and lost productivity in 2012, a 41% increase from the $174 billion estimate in 2007, the American Diabetes Association said.

The Association-commissioned study, Economic Costs of Diabetes in the U.S. in 2012, reported that five million more American adults and children were diagnosed with diabetes in the five years since the last estimate was released, a 27% increase from the 17.5 million diagnosed cases in 2007. Another 79 million Americans now have pre-diabetes, which puts them at risk for developing Type 2 diabetes.

The price tag includes $176 billion in direct medical costs for hospital and emergency care, office visits, and medications. The indirect medical costs were estimated at $69 billion to account for absenteeism, reduced productivity, unemployment caused by diabetes-related disability and lost productivity due to early mortality.

The per-capita cost of medical care attributed to diabetes was $6,649 in 2007 and $7,900 in 2012, a 19% increase. Overall, medical care costs in the U.S. rose by a comparable amount during the same time period, which suggests that the increasing cost is driven by the rapidly growing number of diabetics, the report said.

"The nearly five million more people with diagnosed diabetes [are] the driving force behind the increased costs, without question," Association spokesman Matt Petersen told HealthLeaders Media.

There is no indication that the rate of increase in the number of diabetes cases is slowing. "We've seen some studies indicate there may be some sort of plateauing in the rate of increase in overweight and obesity in this country, and there is a fairly strong correlation between that and diabetes," Petersen says. "But arguably diabetes follows the other, and it's not quite clear how much we are plateauing on overweight and obesity. I think we are talking many years out before the increase in Type 2 diabetes flattens out or even slows down."

The study, which details costs along gender, racial and ethnic lines, and on a state-by-state basis, also found that:

  • More than half (62.4%) of the cost of diabetes care is provided by Medicare, Medicaid, and other government payers, 34.4% in paid for by commercial plans, and 3.2% is paid for by the uninsured.
  • Total per-capita health expenditures are higher among women than men ($8,331 vs. $7,458). Total per-capita healthcare expenditures are lower among Hispanics ($5,930) and higher among non-Hispanic blacks ($9,540) than among non-Hispanic whites ($8,101).
  • California has the largest population with diabetes and the highest costs, at $27.6 billion. Florida's total population is fourth among states behind California, Texas and New York, but it is second in costs at $18.9 billion.

Petersen says the money spent on diabetes could be significantly higher because the Association study does not include estimates on the costs of medical care for people with pre-diabetes and undiagnosed diabetes.

"Bottom line, certainly there are significant additional costs beyond our cost study for our cost study for those two things," he says. Petersen says the study does not distinguish between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.

John Commins is a content specialist and online news editor for HealthLeaders, a Simplify Compliance brand.

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