ATLANTA — Hospitalizations for three common waterborne diseases cost the U.S. health care system as much as $539 million annually, according to investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Modest investments in preventing the three most common waterborne diseases in the United States—Legionnaires' disease, cryptosporidiosis, and giardiasis—would cut the disease rates and lead to significant health care cost savings, concluded study coauthor Michael Beach, Ph.D., associate director for healthy water at the CDC. He presented his study findings at the conference.
Such interventions include public education campaigns, appropriate maintenance of building water systems, and regular inspection of pools and other recreational water facilities.
Dr. Beach and his colleagues used data from the 2004-2007 MarketScan databases, a large insurance claims–based data repository for commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid claims, to estimate the hospitalization costs for the three diseases.
For each case, they calculated the cost paid by the insurer, the out-of-pocket cost to the patient, and the total amount paid.
The average length of stay was 4 days for patients with giardiasis, 6 days for those with cryptosporidiosis, and 10 days for those with Legionnaires' disease.
In-patient hospitalization costs per case averaged more than $34,000 for Legionnaires' disease, approximately $9,000 for giardiasis, and more than $21,000 for cryptosporidiosis, the authors reported.
Estimated annual costs for hospitalization for the three diseases were $154-$539 million, including $44-$147 million in payments from Medicare and Medicaid. For the individual diseases, those costs were: giardiasis, $16-$63 million; cryptosporidiosis, $37-$145 million; and Legionnaires' disease, $101-$321 million.
The researchers reported having no conflicts of interest.
Legionella pneumophila infections cost $34,000 per hospitalization.
Source Courtesy Janice Haney Carr/CDC