Patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) frequently utilize emergency department (ED) services and are frequently hospitalized, according to the results of a retrospective study.
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ED visits and hospitalizations commonly occur in PD patients aged younger than 65 years, which may correlate with work interruption and productivity deficits.
“PD is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder, affecting as many as 1 million Americans,” said Gurkipal Singh, MD, adjunct clinical professor of medicine at Stanford University (Stanford, CA). “Previous studies reported that patients with PD have high rates of ED visits and hospitalizations, but few recent national estimates are available.”
In order to determine hospitalizations and ED frequency among PD patients, Dr Singh and colleagues accessed the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample, the largest all-payer ED database in the United States, and the National Inpatient Sample, which serves as a random sample of all US community hospitals. The researchers further used 2013 estimates of US Census data to calculate population statistics.
The number of all-cause ED visits in 2013 was 134.8 million, which correlated with a prevalence of 42,662 visits per 100,000 population members. PD patients accounted for 408,830 ED visits, with a prevalence of 129 visits per 100,000. Greater than one-half of ED visits by PD patients led to hospitalization.
Among the PD population, men accounted for 55.2% of ED visits (prevalence, 145 per 100,000). Fourteen percent of ED visits were made by patients aged younger than 65 years. The majority of ED visits (85.7%) were paid by Medicare; Medicaid accounted for 3.5% of payments.
Hospitalizations occurred in 271,520 patients, of which 10% were directly related to complications with PD. Twelve percent of hospitalizations occurred in patients aged younger than 65 years, and men comprised 55.8% (prevalence, 97 per 100,000). Medicare claims paid for 87.2% of hospitalizations in this population. – Cameron Kelsall
