Maintaining Your Health Winter 2004/2005
  
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Top Drivers of Health Care Cost Increases
   
In a recent study, 5 medical conditions accounted for nearly one-third of the increase in health care costs. Professor Kenneth Thorpe and colleagues at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory
University in Atlanta, found that the most
common factor has been the explosion of new medical technologies, which improve care but are more expensive than prior ways of treatment.

The fifteen most costly medical conditions include:
 Condition   2000 Health  Care Costs  (Billions)  Increase since  1987 (Billions)  % Increase in  Prevalence
 (per 100,000  treated cases)
 Heart Disease  56.8  26.2  Less than 1%
 PulmonaryDisease  36.4  24.8  49.4%
 Mental Disorders  34.3  23.5  96%
 Cancer  38.9  17.8  17%
 Hypertension  23.4  15.3  17.6%
 Trauma  41.1  14.6  (31%)
 Cerebrovascular
 Disease		  14.9  11.1  108%
 Arthritis  17.6  10.2  27%
 Diabetes  18.3  9.6  43.9%
 Back Problems  17.4  9.5  49.8%
 Skin Disorders  12.0  7.3  18.3%
 Pneumonia  12.6  7.2  (10.8%)
 Infectious Disease  9.8  6.2  (11.3%)
 Endocrine  10.3  5.0  32.8%
 Kidney  8.2  3.2  34.5%

It is interesting to note that the increase in pulmonary disease and mental disorders was significant in both the overall increase in health care costs and the prevalence of the medical condition.

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