@article {10063, title = {Medicare expenditures attributable to dementia.}, journal = {Health Services Research}, year = {2019}, abstract = {

OBJECTIVE: To estimate dementia{\textquoteright}s incremental cost to the traditional Medicare program.

DATA SOURCES: Health and Retirement Study (HRS) survey-linked Medicare part A and B claims from 1991 to 2012.

STUDY DESIGN: We compared Medicare expenditures for 60~months following a claims-based dementia diagnosis to those for a randomly selected, matched comparison group.

DATA COLLECTION/EXTRACTION METHODS: We used a cost estimator that accounts for differential survival between individuals with and without dementia and decomposes incremental costs into survival and cost intensity components.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Dementia{\textquoteright}s five-year incremental cost to the traditional Medicare program is approximately $15~700 per patient, nearly half of which is incurred in the first year after diagnosis. Shorter survival with dementia mitigates the incremental cost by about $2650. Increased costs for individuals with dementia were driven by more intensive use of Medicare part A covered services. The incremental cost of dementia was about $7850 higher for females than for males because of sex-specific differential mortality associated with dementia.

CONCLUSIONS: Dementia{\textquoteright}s cost to the traditional Medicare program is significant. Interventions that target early identification of dementia and preventable inpatient and post-acute care services could produce substantial savings.

}, keywords = {Cognition \& Reasoning, Dementia, Medicare linkage, Medicare/Medicaid/Health Insurance}, issn = {1475-6773}, doi = {10.1111/1475-6773.13134}, author = {Lindsay L Waite and Fishman, Paul and Basu, Anirban and Paul K Crane and Eric B Larson and Norma B Coe} }