Health care costs jump 14x for patients managing multiple chronic conditions

These and other findings are reported in the 23-page Chronic Conditions in the United States: A Study of Commercial Claims. The study focuses on prevalence, co-occurring conditions, costs, geography and correlation of prevalence rates to the poverty rate. Here are more key findings:

• Many patients had more than one chronic condition. More than 11% of patients had two conditions, and 9.1% had three.
• Some chronic conditions frequently co-occur. In the commercially insured population, 33.4% of patients had hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol), hypertension, obesity, or some combination of these — and 4.3% had all three.
• The number of chronic conditions per commercially insured patient per year drives healthcare spending. The average allowed amount rose per number of chronic conditions, reaching $21,730 for 10 or more chronic conditions — 13.7 times higher than for a patient with no chronic conditions.
• The average number of chronic conditions in the commercially insured population is also related to poverty. Some clusters of chronic conditions — such as the cluster of hypertension, diabetes, obesity, chronic kidney disease, and hyperlipidemia — are more strongly correlated to the poverty rate than others. By contrast, the cancers studied all had negative correlations to the poverty rate, with breast cancer showing a -24.3% correlation.

Chronic diseases or conditions are the leading cause of illness, disability, and death in the United States, FAIR Health notes, and the epidemiological reporting platform FAIR Health Atlas uses FAIR Health's repository of commercial healthcare claim records to measure prevalence and costs associated with chronic conditions. This study draws on that platform.