Study: Not All Health Care Super-Utilizers The Same

Health care super-utilizers are expensive, but not all of them are the same, and many don’t stay super-utilizers for long, according to a new study.

Super-utilizers are patients who access the health care system numerous times a year at great cost. Many are uninsured or covered by Medicare and Medicaid.

Kaiser Health News reported last week that a study by Denver Health, a medical center serving a large number of uninsured and underinsured patients, found that 3% of adult patients were super-utilizers, and they accounted for 30% of adult medical charges.

However, researchers were surprised to find that after one year, only 28% of the 1,682 patients originally identified as super-utilizers still qualified for that designation. After two years, the percentage had shrunk to 14%.

The study found that 42% had multiple chronic conditions – a smaller number than might have been assumed. Forty-one percent of hospitalizations were related to serious mental health issues.

Tracy Johnson, lead author and Denver Health’s director of health care reform initiatives, was quoted by Kaiser Health News saying, “Other literature we saw said that there’s this homogenous group of people, and we can just do this one program and save millions of dollars, but what we saw is that it’s more nuanced.”

Read more of the Kaiser Health News article here. The original study will cost you $15, but here’s the abstract.