Patients diagnosed with post-COVID conditions: an analysis of private healthcare claims using the official ICD-10 diagnostic code

Patients diagnosed with post-COVID conditions: an analysis of private healthcare claims using the official ICD-10 diagnostic code

Collection:
Health Policy and Services Research
Series Title(s):
White paper (FAIR Health, Inc.)
Contributor(s):
FAIR Health, Inc., issuing body.
Publication:
New York, NY : FAIR Health, Inc., May 18, 2022
Language(s):
English
Format:
Text
Subject(s):
COVID-19 -- complications
Insurance Claim Reporting
International Classification of Diseases
United States
Genre(s):
Technical Report
Abstract:
Post-COVID conditions, also known by such terms as long COVID and post-acute sequelae of COVID-19, have become an issue of growing national concern. Until recently, researchers were limited by the lack of a specific ICD-10 diagnosis code for post-COVID conditions. Effective October 1, 2021, ICD-10 code U09.9 was introduced for “post COVID-19 condition, unspecified.” This report is among the first to use the U09.9 code for research purposes. Drawing on longitudinal data from FAIR Health’s repository of billions of private healthcare claims, this report studies the population of 78,252 patients in the repository who were diagnosed with the U09.9 code from October 1, 2021, to January 31, 2022. That population is analyzed by COVID-19 hospitalizations, age, gender, number of days from initial COVID-19 diagnosis to last post-COVID diagnosis during the study period, preexisting chronic comorbidities, co-occurring diagnoses and risk scores. Among the key findings: (1) The majority (75.8 percent) of patients diagnosed with a U09.9 post-COVID condition had not been hospitalized for COVID-19. (2) Among patients who presented with a U09.9 post-COVID diagnosis, 81.6 percent of females had not had a COVID-19 hospitalization compared to 67.5 percent of males. (3) The age group 36 to 50 was the most likely to be diagnosed with U09.9 post-COVID conditions; 34.6 percent of patients with that diagnosis were in that age group. (4) Females were more likely than males to be diagnosed with U09.9 post-COVID conditions. Females made up 59.8 percent of the population of patients with that diagnosis, while males made up 40.2 percent. By comparison, within the cohort of people diagnosed with COVID-19 in the FAIR Health repository, 53.8 percent of patients were female and 46.2 percent were male. (5) Of patients who presented with a U09.9 post-COVID condition, 30.7 percent had no identified preexisting chronic comorbidities. (6) The three diagnoses most commonly co-occurring on the same claim line with the U09.9 post COVID diagnosis in patients across all ages and genders were abnormalities of breathing (23.2 percent of patients with post-COVID conditions), cough (18.9 percent) and malaise and fatigue (16.7 percent). (7) In patients with a U09.9 post-COVID diagnosis, certain co-occurring diagnoses were more common in some age groups than across all age groups: for example, multisystem inflammatory syndrome in patients aged 0 to 12; abnormalities of heartbeat in the age group 13 to 22; generalized anxiety disorder in patients aged 23 to 35; and hypertensive diseases in the age group 65 and older. (8) “Other and unspecified myopathies” (diseases that affect the muscles that control voluntary movement) occurred in patients in the post-COVID population 11.1 times more often than in the same population prior to COVID-19. Pulmonary embolism occurred 2.6 times more often. “Other disorders of brain,” including post-viral fatigue syndrome and certain forms of encephalopathy, occurred two times more often. (9) On average, in all age groups, patients with a U09.9 post-COVID condition had higher Department of Health & Human Services-Hierarchical Condition Category (HHS-HCC) risk scores after their diagnosis of COVID-19 than before. HHS-HCC risk scores identify which patients are likely to consume more healthcare resources and potentially incur more healthcare-related costs in the long run.
Copyright:
Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-ND license. (More information)
Extent:
1 online resource (1 PDF file (30 pages))
Illustrations:
Illustrations
NLM Unique ID:
9918504887106676 (See catalog record)
Permanent Link:
http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/9918504887106676