Increased Emergency Department Utilization and Costs for Medicare Cancer Patients with Malnutrition Diagnoses.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Malnutrition or its risk affects up to 70% of cancer patients. Compared to adequately nourished oncology patients, those with malnutrition experience more complications and have poorer prognoses, thus higher needs for healthcare. We compared utilization of emergency department (ED) services and costs for Medicare-covered cancer patients with or without a malnutrition diagnosis.

Methods

We used the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Standard Analytic File to identify fee-for-service beneficiaries who had a cancer diagnosis, and had one or more outpatient claims in 2018. We totaled individual claims and costs for ED visits per beneficiary, then calculated mean per-person claims and costs for malnourished vs non-malnourished patients.

Results

Usi

SUBMITTER: Sulo S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12369183 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature