An analysis of health care expenditures faced by elderly patients with epilepsy over a 12-year period in the United States found rising annual costs over time that approached a mean of $20,000, according to researchers from the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston.
Alain Lekoubou, MD , and his colleagues estimated health care expenditures during 2003-2014 for patients aged 65 years and older with and without epilepsy by extrapolating data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Household Component to more than 37 million elderly individuals in the United States. The investigators published their findings in Epilepsia.
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The unadjusted mean direct health care expenditures for elderly people with epilepsy rose from $15,850 in 2003-2006 to $22,038 in 2007-2010 but dropped in 2011-2014 to $17,985. Figures for the same period for elderly people without epilepsy went from $10,214 to $10,358 to $9,965.
“The high prevalence of epilepsy and high health care expenditures in elderly patients should give priority to epilepsy in the elderly in the medical and public health communities’ agenda,” the authors wrote.
SOURCE: Lekoubou A et al. Epilepsia. 2018 June 19. doi: 10.1111/epi.14455 .