Association of Multimorbidity on Healthcare Expenditures Among Older United States Adults With Pain. (October 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Marupuru, Srujitha; Axon, David R
• Is Part Of: Journal of aging and health. Volume 33:Number 9(2021)
• Page Start: 741
• Page End: 750
• Publication Date: 2021-10
• Subjects: pain -- multimorbidity -- older adults -- health expenditures; Older people -- Health and hygiene -- Periodicals; Geriatrics -- Periodicals; 618.97
• DOI: 10.1177/08982643211011841
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0898-2643

Abstract

Objectives: This cross-sectional study compared the healthcare expenditures associated with multimorbidity (having ≥2 chronic conditions) versus no multimorbidity among older United States (US) adults (aged ≥ 50 years) with self-reported pain in the past 4 weeks.Methods: This research used data from the 2018 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Adjusted linear regression models evaluated group differences in various annual healthcare expenditures.Results: Descriptive statistics indicated multimorbidity was associated with all personal characteristics ( p < 0.05) except gender and smoking status ( p > 0.05). Multimorbidity had 75.8% greater annual total health expenditures ( p = 0.0083), 40.6% greater office-based expenditures ( p = 0.0224), 100.6% greater prescription medication costs, ( p = 0.0268), yet 47.3% lower inpatient expenditures ( p = 0.0158), and 56.6% lower home healthcare expenditures ( p < 0.0001) than no multimorbidity.Discussion: This study found greater healthcare expenditures among older US adults with pain and multimorbidity, which captures the financial burden of comorbidity in this population.