Trends in rates and attributable costs of conditions among female VA patients, 2000 and 2008.

Yoon J, Scott JY, Phibbs CS, Frayne SM. Trends in rates and attributable costs of conditions among female VA patients, 2000 and 2008. Women's health issues : official publication of the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health. 2012 May 1; 22(3):e337-44.

Dimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects.

If you have VA-Intranet access, click here for more information vaww.hsrd.research.va.gov/dimensions/

VA staff not currently on the VA network can access Dimensions by registering for an account using their VA email address.    Search Dimensions for VA for this citation
* Don't have VA-internal network access or a VA email address? Try searching the free-to-the-public version of Dimensions

Search for Abstract from PubMed

---

Abstract:

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: We examined rates of specific health conditions among female veteran patients and how the share of health care costs attributable to these conditions changed in the Veterans Affairs system between 2000 and 2008. METHODS: Veterans' Administration (VA)-provided and VA-sponsored inpatient, outpatient, and pharmacy utilization and cost files were analyzed for women veterans receiving care in 2000 and 2008. We estimated rates of 42 common health conditions and per-patient condition costs from a regression model and calculated the total population costs attributable to each condition and changes by year. RESULTS: The number of female VA patients increased from 156,305 in 2000 to 266,978 in 2008; 88% were under 65 years of age. The rate of women treated for specific conditions increased substantially for many gender-specific and psychiatric conditions: For example, pregnancy increased 133%, diagnosed posttraumatic stress disorder increased 106%, and diagnosed depression increased 41%. Mean costs of care increased from $4,962 per woman in 2000 to $6,570 per woman in 2008. Psychiatric conditions accounted for more than one quarter of population health care costs in 2008. Gender-specific conditions and musculoskeletal diseases accounted for a rising share of population costs and rose to 8.2% and 8.7% of population costs in 2008, respectively. CONCLUSION: Gender-specific, cancer, musculoskeletal, and mental health and substance use disorders accounted for a greater share of overall costs during the study period and were primarily driven by higher rates of diagnosed conditions and, for several conditions, higher treatment costs.