Cost Information

• The total annual economic cost of diabetes in 1997 was estimated to be $98 billion. That includes $44 billion in direct medical and treatment costs and $54 billion for indirect costs attributed to disability and mortality.


• In 1997, total health expenditures incurred by people with diabetes amounted to $77.7 billion including health care costs not resulting from diabetes. The per capita costs of health care for people with diabetes amounted to $10,071, while health care costs for people without diabetes amounted to $2,669 in 1997.

Additional information:

• Direct Costs of Diabetes
• Indirect Costs of Diabetes

Direct Costs of Diabetes

• Estimated at $44 billion in 1997.
• Represents 5.8 percent of total personal health-care expenditures in the U.S.; however, diagnosed diabetes patients account for only 3.8 percent of the total U.S. civilian population.
• Approximately $27.5 billion was spent for inpatient hospital care and $5.5 billion for nursing home care.
• Diabetes-related hospitalizations totaled 13.9 million days in 1997. Rates of outpatient care were highest for physician office visits, which included 30.3 million visits to treat persons with diabetes.
• The mean length of stay for hospitalization was 5.4 days.
• Cardiovascular disease is the most costly complication of type 2 diabetes, accounting for more than $7 billion of the $44.1 billion annual direct medical costs for diabetes in 1997.
• Sustained reduction in A1C (blood glucose) levels among adults with diabetes was associated with significant cost savings within 1 to 2 years.

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Indirect Costs of Diabetes

• Estimated to be $54 billion in 1997. Disability costs amounted to $37.1 billion and mortality amounted to approximately $17 billion.
• In 1997, diabetes accounted for a loss of nearly 88 million disability days. Of those, over 14 million work-loss days from jobs outside of the home were attributable to diabetes in 1997.
• A total of 74,927 workers were reported to be permanently disabled because of diabetes.
• On average, people with diabetes ages 18 to 64 lost 8.3 days from work, as compared with 1.7 days for people without diabetes.
• Based on death certificate data, diabetes contributed to 209,664 deaths in 1999.

Source:

For more information, contact the American Diabetes Association at 1-800-DIABETES (1-800-342-2383), or visit the Web site at www.diabetes.org/home.jsp.

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