Direct Medical Expenditures and Healthcare Utilizations in US Hispanic vs. Non-Hispanic Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD): An Analysis of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey 2012-2016
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Introduction: This study aimed to evaluate how chronic obstructive pulmonary disease incidence, healthcare utilization, and cost differ by Hispanic vs. non-Hispanic population category in the United States. Methods: The retrospective database analysis was employed using 2012- 2016 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) data for patients with COPD. Study outcomes were COPD incidence, healthcare utilization, and healthcare expenditure among Hispanic vs. non-Hispanic population. All-cause direct medical utilization and expenditures were calculated for the following categories of health care services: inpatient hospitalizations, hospital outpatient visits, emergency room visits, officebased physician visits, home health care visits, and prescription medications. Results: Based on the MEPS data, the total of 11,235 (weighted sample size: 4,869,868) patients were included in the analysis after applying inclusion criteria (Hispanic: 2,218 (weighted sample size: 2,363,375) and Non-Hispanic: 9,017 (weighted sample size: 22,506,493)). Hispanic patients had significantly lower expenditures on inpatients visits, hospital outpatients, medications prescriptions compared to Non- Hispanic patients (p<0.001). The incremental cost (Non-Hispanic minus Hispanic) was $ 1,742.83 (95% CI: 404.35-3,081.32, p=0.011), indicating that Non-Hispanic group had significantly higher cost on overall health care services compared to Hispanic group. Similarly, Non- Hispanic patients showed $ 764.14 (95% CI: 453.40- 1,074.89) higher expenditures related COPD than Hispanic patients ($ 1,945.61 (95% CI: 1,674.63-2,216.58) vs. $ 1,181.47 (95% CI: 950.44-1,412.49). Both inpatients visits and medications prescriptions linked to COPD diagnosis events were significantly higher for Non-Hispanic patients than Hispanic patients. Conclusion: The results of our study demonstrate that non-Hispanics with COPD have higher healthcare utilization costs compared to Hispanics with COPD. While the overall amount spent on healthcare by Hispanics is less, it emphasizes the need for better management in this subset of the population to minimize the future harm and to establish a fair healthcare system for all Americans.
