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Updated with medical claims data as of June 20, 2020
For the past few months, Perception Health has analyzed the medical claims records of Covid-19 patients. There are 332,654 patients covered by commercial health insurance in this database.
We filtered these de-identified patient records against our vast data warehouse of medical claims records to create more robust patient histories. We then compared the medical histories of these Covid-19 patients to the histories of 100,000 patients randomly selected from 2019 commercial claims records, which we set as our population baseline.
In addition, we recently received medical claims records from CMS with information about 549,414 Covid-19 patients who receive Medicare. We analyzed the Medicare patients to segment the group by race and gender. We then totaled the Medicare patients by their instances of chronic diseases and compared these figures to the Covid-19 patients in our database with commercial insurance.
Earlier this year, the CDC released a list of chronic diseases and underlying health conditions that would place patients at greater risk if they contract Covid-19. Patients with the following diseases have a much higher probability of experiencing a severe case of Covid-19 and may be hospitalized.
When we filtered our database of Covid-19 patient histories with commercial insurance, we found many instances of co-morbidities identified by the CDC. Patients with these health conditions are at higher risk for a more severe case of the coronavirus that will likely require hospitalization. In fact, our research statistically validated the inclusion of the following co-morbidities on the CDC list:
Furthermore, the following co-morbidities show two to four times as many instances in Covid-19 patient histories when compared to the random sample. If people with these co-morbidities contract the disease, they are more likely to get a severe case of the disease that requires hospitalization:
*The inclusion of senile dementia in this chart is more a function of the age of patients in the database, which includes patients with Medicare Advantage. When we expect this co-morbidity to remain near the top of this list as we add more data.
The following table shows noteworthy comparisons of co-morbidities involving Covid-19 patients with commercial insurance and the random sample:
Perception Health analysts reviewed a data set containing medical claims records for 549,414 U.S. Medicare patients (through June 20, 2020) and compared that set to our data set commercial health insurance patients. In the Medicare data we see that blacks represent 20% of Covid-19 patients on Medicare, though blacks only make up 13.4% of the U.S. population. The rate of hospitalization for black Covid-19 patients with Medicare is an even higher percentage: 28%
We also see that more women than men with Medicare are diagnosed with Covid-19, though more men end up hospitalized:
Our analysis of 549,414 U.S. Medicare patients diagnosed with Covid-19 confirms the recommendations from the CDC that individuals with compromised immune systems from the following chronic diseases stand a much greater chance of being hospitalized with a severe case. Patients with hypertension, hyperlipidemia, chronic kidney diseases, anemia, all cancers, and diabetes should especially follow recommended safety measures to avoid contracting the disease:
These statistics reiterate the fact that individuals with the above underlying health conditions must continue to shelter at home and take extra precautions when in large crowds. Wear a mask, wash your hands often, and continue to monitor the number of Covid-19 cases in your area.
Perception Health has the freshest, most complete, actionable data available in the U.S. With our experience and expertise at analyzing Covid-19 medical claims records, imagine what we can do by analyzing claims records in your market. Contact us today for a complete demo of our services.
