Diabetes claims rising for kids
High blood pressure, sleep apnea also jump
It’s no secret that American children have gotten fatter in recent decades.
Now a new study joins earlier research showing the consequences: A sharp rise in insurance claims for youth with Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and other conditions more often associated with older adults.
Claims for Type 2 diabetes — formerly known as “adult-onset” diabetes — among young people up to 20 years old more than doubled between 2011 and 2015, according to an analysis of a large national database of claims paid by about 60 insurers.
At the same time, claims for prediabetes among children and youth rose 110 percent, while high blood pressure claims rose 67 percent. Sleep apnea, a condition where a patient temporarily stops breathing while sleeping, rose 161 percent.
The findings “not only raise quality-of-life questions for children, but also the … kind of resources that will be necessary to address this emerging situation,” said Robin Gelburd, president of the nonprofit Fair Health, a national clearing house for claims data that offers free medical cost comparison tools to consumers and sells data to insurers and health systems.
To be sure, the analysis is certainly not the first to note a rise in obesity or Type 2 diabetes in this age group; nor does it explore the possible reasons behind the apparent increase in claims. One factor in the rise could simply be increased awareness and testing for the problem, while variations between states could reflect differences in patient ethnicities, how doctors practice, insurance rules or all of those factors.
“We try to give a big picture and welcome others to look under there hood for details,” Gelburd acknowledged.
But the analysis is different than some earlier research because it uses a database of actual claims for about 150 million people, all of whom have private insurance. The study focused on a subset of youth: those who had a diagnosis of obesity or Type 2 diabetes. Researchers analyzed claims data tied to those patients to determine what other conditions they experienced and the medical services provided to them.
Claims data is considered a good research tool because it reflects services actually provided. But, conversely, the Fair Health analysis is also limited because it does not include claims submitted by Medicaid or other government programs, so it doesn’t represent a true cross section of the population.
Even with those limitations, the findings “are frightening,” said Stephen Pont, a pediatrician and medical director of the childhood obesity center at Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin, Texas, who did not work on the analysis.
“The vast majority of kids should never have high blood pressure or diabetes or sleep apnea. Now we’re seeing those consequences in kids,” he said. “That will result in shorter lives and lower quality of life.”
The solution, he added, is for insurers to increase weight management coverage for children.