Objectives: The aim of this study was to characterize health-care utilization, costs, and productivity in a large population of patients diagnosed with narcolepsy in the United States.
Methods: This retrospective, observational study using data from the Truven Health Analytics MarketScan Research Databases assessed 5 years of claims data (2006-2010) to compare health-care utilization patterns, productivity, and associated costs among narcolepsy patients (identified by International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD9) narcolepsy diagnosis codes) versus matched controls. A total of 9312 narcolepsy patients (>18 years of age, continuously insured between 2006 and 2010) and 46,559 matched controls were identified.
Results: Compared with controls, narcolepsy subjects had approximately twofold higher annual rates of inpatient admissions (0.15 vs. 0.08), emergency department (ED) visits w/o admission (0.34 vs. 0.17), hospital outpatient (OP) visits (2.8 vs. 1.4), other OP services (7.0 vs. 3.2), and physician visits (11.1 vs. 5.6; all p<0.0001). The rate of total annual drug transactions was doubled in narcolepsy versus controls (26.4 vs. 13.3; p<0.0001), including a 337% and 72% higher usage rate of narcolepsy drugs and non-narcolepsy drugs, respectively (both p<0.0001). Mean yearly costs were significantly higher in narcolepsy compared with controls for medical services ($8346 vs. $4147; p<0.0001) and drugs ($3356 vs. $1114; p<0.0001).
Conclusions: Narcolepsy was found to be associated with substantial personal and economic burdens, as indicated by significantly higher rates of health-care utilization and medical costs in this large US group of narcolepsy patients.
Keywords: Burden of illness; Cataplexy; Cost of illness; Health-care utilization; Narcolepsy; Socioeconomic impact.
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