Comparing Healthcare Costs in the VA System

In a comparison of BED and EDNOS patients and those without eating disorders, costs were highest for BED care.

Healthcare costs are high for patients with eating disorders, but most research in this area has been limited to evaluating costs of care for AN and BN patients. When a team compared the one-year health care costs and use of healthcare facilities for patients with binge eating disorder (BED), those with eating disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS), and matched control patients without an eating disorder, costs for BED and EDNOS were well above those for people with no eating disorders (Int J Eat Disord. 2015, May 8, doi:10.1002/eat.22427. [Epub ahead of print]

Brandon K. Bellows, PharmD, of the VA Salt Lake City Healthcare System, Salt Lake City, UT, and fellow researchers first identified patients with BED or EDNOS from clinical notes from 2000 to 2011 from the Department of Veterans Affairs electronic health record database. Inpatient, outpatient, pharmacy, and total overall costs were then compared.

The mean total unadjusted one-year costs were $33,716 for patients with BED, $37,052 for EDNOS-only patients, and $19,548 for patients without eating disorders. After statistically adjusting for patient characteristics, BED patients had one-year total healthcare costs that were $5,589 higher than those of EDNOS-only patients and $18,152 higher than for patients without eating disorders.

An important part of this study is that the BED and non-ED groups were matched for body mass index (BMI, kg/m²). This helps address the question of whether the complications and costs associated with BED are simply due to obesity; these results suggest they are not.