Private insurance claims with a diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea grew 850 percent in the U.S. from 2014 to 2017, according to a press release from FAIR Health, a national, independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing transparency to health care costs and health insurance information.
The analysis involved data from its database of more than 25 billion privately billed health care claims, the nation’s largest repository of private health care claim records. Results show that:
- Males accounted for 65 percent of sleep apnea claim lines, females 35 percent.
- The age group 51 to 60 years accounted for 31 percent of sleep apnea claim lines—the largest share of eight age groups studied. Patients 61 to 70 years old represented 23 percent of claim lines, while those 41 to 50 years old accounted for 20 percent.
- The states with the most sleep apnea claim lines as a percent of all medical claim lines by state were (ranked from most to least) Maryland, Idaho, Utah, Arkansas and Iowa.
- The states with the lowest proportion of sleep apnea claim lines were (from least to most) New Hampshire, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Vermont and Hawaii.
- The most common diagnoses associated with sleep apnea on claim lines were diabetes, hypertension, respiratory and chest symptoms, dorsalgia, high cholesterol, general fatigue, joint pain and cardiac dysrhythmias.
