993-P: Changes in Medical Expenditures and Out-of-Pocket Costs in Medicare Beneficiaries with Diabetes during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

How COVID-19 has affected payers and persons with diabetes mellitus (DM) is not well understood. We compared total and per capita medical expenditures and out-of-pocket (OOP) costs during and before the pandemic periods among Medicare beneficiaries with DM. We used data from all Medicare fee-for-service claims from 03/2019 to 02/2022. We identified 9,376,546 persons with DM using International Classification of Diseases codes. We calculated quarterly population total, per capita total, per capita OOP cost, and then per capita expenditure by service type. Changes in expenditure were calculated as the difference in the same quarter between the pandemic (03/2020~02/2022) and the pre-pandemic (03/2019~02/2020) periods. Population total and total per capita expenditure decreased sharply during the first few months of the pandemic (Figure). Population total expenditure had not returned to the pre-pandemic level while per capita total expenditure reached a higher than the pre-pandemic level by 02/2022. Changes in OOP costs had a similar pattern as the changes in total per capita expenditure, however, OOP costs in the pandemic were lower than the pre-pandemic level during the entire study period. Changes in per capita expenditure varied by service type. COVID-19 had different effects on total and per capita expenditure overall and by service type in Medicare beneficiaries with DM. Disclosure Y.Wang: None. P.Zhang: None. X.Zhou: None. D.B.Rolka: None. G.Imperatore: None.