Identifying patterns of clinical conditions among high-cost older adult health care users using claims data: a latent class approach

OBJECTIVES: To identify patterns of clinical conditions among high-cost older adults health care users and explore the associations between characteristics of high-cost older adults and patterns of clinical conditions. METHODS: We analyzed data from the Shanghai Basic Social Medical Insurance Database, China. A total of 2927 older adults aged 60 years and over were included as the analysis sample. We used latent class analysis to identify patterns of clinical conditions among high-cost older adults health care users. Multinomial logistic regression models were also used to determine the associations between demographic characteristics, insurance types, and patterns of clinical conditions. RESULTS: Five clinically distinctive subgroups of high-cost older adults emerged. Classes included “cerebrovascular diseases” (10.6% of high-cost older adults), “malignant tumor” (9.1%), “arthrosis” (8.8%), “ischemic heart disease” (7.4%), and “other sporadic diseases” (64.1%). Age, sex, and type of medical insurance were predictors of high-cost older adult subgroups. CONCLUSIONS: Profiling patterns of clinical conditions among high-cost older adults is potentially useful as a first step to inform the development of tailored management and intervention strategies. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12939-022-01688-3.