Health care resource utilization and costs among individuals with vs without Huntington disease in a US population

BACKGROUND: Quantifying the extent of health care resource utilization (HCRU) and costs associated with Huntington disease (HD) is vital for providers, decisionmakers, and payers to understand unmet treatment needs and to ensure limited resources can be used to benefit the maximum number of people with HD. OBJECTIVE: To quantify HCRU and costs for people with HD, overall and by disease stage, and compare these with non-HD controls. METHODS: This was a retrospective cohort study using administrative claims data from the IBM MarketScan Commercial, Multi-State Medicaid, and Medicare Supplemental Databases from January 1, 2009, to December 31, 2018. People with an HD claim between January 1, 2010, and December 31, 2017, were selected for this analysis and matched with non-HD controls for comparison. The HD cohort and the non-HD controls were exact matched on their follow-up duration and propensity score matched 1:4 to create the final analytical cohort. Index date was the first HD diagnosis for the HD cohort (proxy index date assigned to controls), and all individuals were required to have continuous enrollment for 12 or more months pre-index (baseline) and 3 or more months post-index. Proportions of all-cause HCRU (ie, outpatient visits, inpatient visits, emergency department visits, pharmacy fills, radiology visits, and physical/occupational therapy visits) in the 6-months post-index and HCRU counts and costs per patient per month (PPPM) over the entire follow-up were calculated for each cohort. RESULTS: A total of 2,473 individuals with HD and 9,522 matched non-HD controls were identified. HCRU in 6 months post-index was significantly greater in people with HD compared with non-HD controls for all health care service categories; P < 0.0001. The mean number of HCRU PPPM for all measured healthcare services was significantly higher in people with HD compared with non-HD controls (P < 0.001). Mean total costs (2018 USD PPPM) for the HD cohort ($2,260 [SD = $4,682]) were twice the total costs in the non-HD cohort ($1,056 [SD = $3,078]) (P < 0.0001) and were highest across all disease stages. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides current comprehensive HCRU and cost estimates in individuals with HD relative to those without the disease, thus demonstrating the high economic burden imposed by HD.