Report: Skin Disease Accounts for $75 Billion Annually

According to a report presented at the 2017 American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) Annual Summer Meeting, the annual burden of skin disease was $75 billion in 2013, with an average per patient cost of $887.

The report, which was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, was presented at the meeting by Marta Van Beek, MD, MPH, chief of staff at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

The report updates a previous burden of skin disease report from 2004. In order to compile the analysis, Dr Van Beek and colleagues studied medical claims data from 2013—the most recent available year with complete medical data on skin disease. They sought to update the burden in order to gauge the impact on health care industry changes since 2004, such as implementation of the ACA, new treatments, and the widespread use of electronic health records. 

According to the report, the highest prevalence of skin diseases were noncancerous skin growths, cutaneous infections, viral diseases, fungal diseases, wounds, and burns. Dr Van Beek and colleagues found that the lowest prevalence were skin diseases such as vitiligo, cutaneous lymphoma, and bullous disease. They found that the average number of skin disease in any patient in the general population was 1.6 per patient—meaning that each patient usually has multiple skin diagnosis. 

The authors found that the most expensive diseases to treat across the general population were cutaneous infections, wounds, burns, and noncancerous growths—due to their high prevalence throughout the population. Conversely, the report showed that while rare diseases are more expensive to treat in the individual patient, the burden across the general population is lower compared to more common diseases. 

According to Dr Beek’s presentation, the AAD will now used the cost analysis to instill practices that ensure patients are receiving the highest quality care at the lowest possible cost. —David Costill