Dive Brief:
- Major birth defects in the U.S. account for 3% of hospitalizations but 5.2% of total hospital costs, according to an analysis by the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC).
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The authors estimated that hospitalization costs in 2013 for patients of all ages whose discharge diagnosis included at least one birth defect code were between $18.9 billion and $22.9 billion.
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"Within cardiovascular defects, critical congenital heart defect–associated hospitalizations had the highest mean and median cost of the birth defect categories considered ($79,011 and $29,886, respectively)," the researchers found.
Dive Insight:
Birth defects take a tremendous toll on families, emotionally and financially, and are associated with hospitalizations throughout the patient’s lifetime. The burden of hospitalization costs for patients of all ages who had birth defects was measured in this analysis, and it’s not surprising that the costs are disproportionately high.
It’s already known that 3% of live births are affected by major birth defects; the authors sought to measure the financial impact of this health issue. They based their analysis on data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project 2013 National Inpatient Sample. According to the MMWR report, a previous analysis of 2004 data placed costs at approximately $2.6 billion. Due to the diagnosis codes included in the analysis, the authors of the current study deemed the 2004 estimates to be low. If they had followed the same guidelines with the 2013 data, costs would have increased from $2.6 billion in 2004 to $5 billion in 2013.
In the current analysis, heart-related defects were, by far, associated with the highest costs. The causes of congenital heart defects are not known, although they have been associated with smoking during pregnancy. The second-largest category was gastrointestinal birth defects. Given the growing opioid addiction epidemic, neonatal abstinence syndrome, which has been linked to birth defects and other problems, can be expected to significantly drive up hospitalization costs as well.
Although the analysis showed that median costs were highest for patients 65 years old and above, total hospitalization costs were highest among patients who were less than one year old, suggesting that a better understanding of the causes of these defects and improved preventive measures could have a significant impact on future costs.