Health Care Utilization and Costs Associated with Breast and Female Genital System Cancers: An Analysis using the 2013 MEPS Database

In 2015, 231,840 new cases for breast cancer and 98,000 new cases for female genital system cancers were estimated to be diagnosed in the US. Breast cancer is the most prevalent type of cancer and ranks second as cause of cancer death, after lung cancer, in women in the US. This study evaluated the utilization of health care services, costs and sources of payment associated with breast and female genital system cancers. A retrospective analysis was conducted using data from the Household Component of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) database for the year 2013. We assessed the Medical Conditions and Event data files to identify female patients with breast and genital system cancers, in Outpatient, Inpatient, Emergency Room, Office-based Medical Provider, Home Health and Prescribed Medicines events and linked them to person-level variables from the full year consolidated files. Descriptive statistical analyses were performed using SAS® 9.2 and Microsoft Excel 2013 for health care utilization and costs for each type of cancer and event. We identified patients who had a diagnosis code for breast, uterine, cervical and other female genital system cancers. We identified 236 unique patients who accounted for 1822 unique cancer-associated medical events. Breast cancer accounted for 77.08% of the patients. Office-based medical provider visits accounted for 72.7% of all the events and 44% of the total payments. Prescription drugs were linked to 20% of the office-based events. Private insurance accounted for 50.09% of all health care costs. Medicare and Medicaid accounted for 27.9% and 11.4%, respectively. Out-of-pocket payments represented 5% of the total payments. Breast cancer was associated with 70.2% of the total costs. Breast and female genital system cancers result in substantial health care costs. Most of the cost associated with these cancers is paid by private health insurance.