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The Charlson Comorbidity Index Can Be Used Prospectively to Identify Patients Who Will Incur High Future Costs

BACKGROUND: Reducing health care costs requires the ability to identify patients most likely to incur high costs. Our objective was to evaluate the ability of the Charlson comorbidity score to predict the individuals who would incur high costs in the subsequent year and to contrast its predictive ab...

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Autores principales: Charlson, Mary, Wells, Martin T., Ullman, Ralph, King, Fionnuala, Shmukler, Celia
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4254512/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25469987
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0112479
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author Charlson, Mary
Wells, Martin T.
Ullman, Ralph
King, Fionnuala
Shmukler, Celia
author_facet Charlson, Mary
Wells, Martin T.
Ullman, Ralph
King, Fionnuala
Shmukler, Celia
author_sort Charlson, Mary
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Reducing health care costs requires the ability to identify patients most likely to incur high costs. Our objective was to evaluate the ability of the Charlson comorbidity score to predict the individuals who would incur high costs in the subsequent year and to contrast its predictive ability with other commonly used predictors. METHODS: We contrasted the prior year Charlson comorbidity index, costs, Diagnostic Cost Group (DCG) and hospitalization as predictors of subsequent year costs from claims data of fund that provides comprehensive health benefits to a large union of health care workers. Total costs in the subsequent year was the principal outcome. RESULTS: Of the 181,764 predominantly Black and Latino beneficiaries, 70% were adults (mean age 45.7 years; 62% women). As the comorbidity index increased, total yearly costs increased significantly (P<.001). At lower comorbidity, the costs were similar across different chronic diseases. Using regression to predict total costs, top 5(th) and 10(th) percentile of costs, the comorbidity index, prior costs and DCG achieved almost identical explained variance in both adults and children. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: The comorbidity index predicted health costs in the subsequent year, performing as well as prior cost and DCG in identifying those in the top 5% or 10%. The comorbidity index can be used prospectively to identify patients who are likely to incur high costs. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01761253
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spelling pubmed-42545122014-12-11 The Charlson Comorbidity Index Can Be Used Prospectively to Identify Patients Who Will Incur High Future Costs Charlson, Mary Wells, Martin T. Ullman, Ralph King, Fionnuala Shmukler, Celia PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Reducing health care costs requires the ability to identify patients most likely to incur high costs. Our objective was to evaluate the ability of the Charlson comorbidity score to predict the individuals who would incur high costs in the subsequent year and to contrast its predictive ability with other commonly used predictors. METHODS: We contrasted the prior year Charlson comorbidity index, costs, Diagnostic Cost Group (DCG) and hospitalization as predictors of subsequent year costs from claims data of fund that provides comprehensive health benefits to a large union of health care workers. Total costs in the subsequent year was the principal outcome. RESULTS: Of the 181,764 predominantly Black and Latino beneficiaries, 70% were adults (mean age 45.7 years; 62% women). As the comorbidity index increased, total yearly costs increased significantly (P<.001). At lower comorbidity, the costs were similar across different chronic diseases. Using regression to predict total costs, top 5(th) and 10(th) percentile of costs, the comorbidity index, prior costs and DCG achieved almost identical explained variance in both adults and children. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: The comorbidity index predicted health costs in the subsequent year, performing as well as prior cost and DCG in identifying those in the top 5% or 10%. The comorbidity index can be used prospectively to identify patients who are likely to incur high costs. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01761253 Public Library of Science 2014-12-03 /pmc/articles/PMC4254512/ /pubmed/25469987 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0112479 Text en © 2014 Charlson et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Charlson, Mary
Wells, Martin T.
Ullman, Ralph
King, Fionnuala
Shmukler, Celia
The Charlson Comorbidity Index Can Be Used Prospectively to Identify Patients Who Will Incur High Future Costs
title The Charlson Comorbidity Index Can Be Used Prospectively to Identify Patients Who Will Incur High Future Costs
title_full The Charlson Comorbidity Index Can Be Used Prospectively to Identify Patients Who Will Incur High Future Costs
title_fullStr The Charlson Comorbidity Index Can Be Used Prospectively to Identify Patients Who Will Incur High Future Costs
title_full_unstemmed The Charlson Comorbidity Index Can Be Used Prospectively to Identify Patients Who Will Incur High Future Costs
title_short The Charlson Comorbidity Index Can Be Used Prospectively to Identify Patients Who Will Incur High Future Costs
title_sort charlson comorbidity index can be used prospectively to identify patients who will incur high future costs
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4254512/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25469987
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0112479
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