Health Care Utilization

Higher health care use among adults with IBD
Compared with adults without IBD, those with IBD are more likely to use health care including doctors’ visits, medication prescriptions, emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and surgeries.

Urban-rural differences in health care utilization related to IBD
Digestive disease-related office visit rates were 3 times higher in urban than rural areas in 2015 and 2016. Hospitalization and emergency room visit rates for Crohn’s disease, however, were significantly higher in rural than urban areas in 2017.

Different patient characteristics associated with major ambulatory surgeries among adults with and without IBD
IBD patients are more likely to have major ambulatory surgeries related to the gastrointestinal tract than those without IBD. Adults with IBD who undergo major ambulatory surgeries are more likely to have obstructive sleep apnea, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and mental illness that may increase risk of surgeries than those without IBD.

Stable trends in hospitalizations for a first-listed Crohn’s disease diagnosis from 2003-2013
There was no significant change in the hospitalization rate when Crohn’s disease was the primary diagnosis. Hospitalization rates increased significantly from 44.2 to 59.7 per 100,000 population when Crohn’s disease was listed as a secondary diagnosis.

Stable trends in costs of IBD hospitalization in recent years
The mean hospitalization costs in 2014 were $11,345 for Crohn’s disease and $13,412 for ulcerative colitis. From 2003 to 2008, total hospitalization costs increased annually by 3% for Crohn’s disease and 4% for ulcerative colitis but remained unchanged for both diseases from 2008 to 2014.

Higher risk of COVID-19 hospitalizations among older adults with ulcerative colitis
Medicare beneficiaries with ulcerative colitis were more likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19 compared with those without IBD.

Prescription of biologics increasing in patients with IBD in recent decade
From 2011 to 2020, there was an increase in the percentage of patients with IBD prescribed biologics, while corticosteroid prescriptions decreased among IBD patients prescribed biologics and were stable among patients not prescribed biologics. Differences in medication prescriptions existed by patient demographic and lifestyle factors.