Healthcare Utilization and Comorbidity Burden among Children and Young Adults in the United States with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus or Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Objective We sought to assess the feasibility of using a health insurance claims database to estimate the prevalence and health care utilization and costs among children diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Study design This was a retrospective analysis of the LifeLink insurance claims database for the years 2000-2006. Children (0-15 years) and young adults (16-25 years) with >= 2 diagnosis claims for SLE or IBD were selected as the 2 cohorts of interest. For each member of the SLE and IBD cohorts, 2 individuals were randomly selected for a matched comparison group. All the analyses were descriptive in nature, CI for differences between means and 2 proportions for measures including health care utilization, comorbidity burden were based on t tests and 2-group tests of proportions. Results We identified 278 patients with SLE (prevalence estimate: 7.9 per/100 000 population) and 1174 patients with IBD (33.2 per/100 000 population). The mean annual total medical costs was substantially higher for the SLE (difference: $22 223; 95% CI: $14 961-$29 485) and IBD (difference: $16 238; 95% CI: $14 395-$18 082) cohorts compared with those of the comparator cohort. We observed higher comorbidity burdens in the SLE and IBD cohorts than we saw in the comparator cohort. Conclusions Administrative claims data can be a useful tool for assessing the comparative prevalence and associated resource utilization of rare conditions such as SLE and IBD. (J Pediatr 2012;161:662-70).