The economic cost of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias to the California Medicaid program ("Medi-Cal") in 1995.
Although state Medicaid programs may bear a large portion of the costs of Alzheimer's disease (AD), current information on spending is not available. Using a health insurance claims database for a 10% random sample of California Medicaid ("Medi-Cal") recipients 60+ years of age, the authors estimated the excess cost of AD to Medi-Cal in 1995 as the difference in expenditures between an AD cohort (those with AD or related dementias) and an age- and sex-matched cohort without AD. Among 62,450 recipients, 2,575 (4.1%) were found to have AD or related dementias, and their average payments were approximately $7,700 higher (P<0.01) than those for the comparison group. These estimates suggest that Medi-Cal spends about $200 million on AD and related dementias annually, a burden that represents nearly 10% of state spending on elderly patients.
Menzin
J
J
Boston Health Economics, Inc; Harvard University, MA, USA.
Lang
K
K
Friedman
M
M
Neumann
P
P
Cummings
J L
JL
D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000191:economics*; D002140:California; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003704:Dementia / Q000191:economics*; D005260:Female; D005102:Health Expenditures; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008484:Medicaid / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014481:United States