Following is an abstract from a published scientific article regarding medical costs associated with fibromyalgia and the impact of a brief multidisciplinary treatment program. The four year medical cost statistics of fibromyalgia compared to control patients in the study group are staggering. The total four-year medical costs for controls in the study were $7774 compared with $15,759 for those with fibromyalgia. Part of the study’s hypothesis included comparing medical costs over a four year period after administration of a cognitive behavior therapy program. The outcome of the study demonstrated that the increased cost in fibromyalgia medical care is related to the severity of symptoms and was not impacted by participation in a brief cognitive behavior therapy program.
STUDY: Direct medical costs in patients with fibromyalgia: Cost of illness and impact of a brief multidisciplinary treatment program.
The patients diagnosed with fibromyalgia incur about twice as much direct medical costs than that of non fibromyalgia patients, according to the results of a 4-year study by the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota. The study was published in the January 2011 issue of the American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation.
The objective of the study was to compare the direct medical costs of clinically diagnosed patients with fibromyalgia with the medical costs of matched controls during a 4-yr period and to assess the impact of a fibromyalgia treatment program on healthcare utilization and associated medical costs. The study compared economic outcomes in 87 patients who participated in a fibromyalgia treatment program between 2001 and 2004 and who were local residents for the entire 4-yr period spanning their participation in the program, with age and sex-matched controls. Costs for the 2 yrs before and 2 yrs after program participation were also compared.
RESULTS: Four-year medical costs for controls were $7774 compared with $15,759 for those with fibromyalgia. There was no significant change in direct costs after participation in a brief fibromyalgia treatment program. Those with increased symptom severity averaged $2034 higher direct medical costs during the 4-yr period.
CONCLUSIONS: Patients with clinically diagnosed fibromyalgia incur direct medical costs about twice that of their matched controls. This increased cost is related to the severity of their symptoms as measured by the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire and was not impacted by participation in a brief cognitive behaviorally based fibromyalgia treatment program.
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Tags: American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Direct Medical Costs Are Double for Patients with Fibromyalgia, fibromyalgia
My current doc keeps telling me,” You are young , in good health, and your kidneys and liver are good. So, I don’t want to give you any pain medications.” ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I’m FORTY, suf-fer-ing from hypothyroidism, FIBRO, and arthritis, and you don’t want to even TRY to let me see if I can get a break somehow? Wow, to me you need to go back to the free clinic and get some more experience. Ay- whole.
I was diagnosed by my GP at a local community clinic in 2001. I did my own research after he was officially stumped, printed it out and took it to my follow up appointment. He read it, called me personally and told me after doing his own research as well that he believes it to be correct. He also told me that people with fibro tend to have underlying auto-immune issues. He’s right. I have psoriasis and possible psoriatic arthritis. I have dealt with doctors (usually the doctors I was working for) who didn’t believe that fibro was a real disease. I often heard, “If you’ll just exercise more, then you won’t have that pain.” Riiiiight. So, basically it wasn’t fibro, it was because I was obese. I saw a Rheumatologist in Texas, but he worked for the clinic I worked for and kept giving me steroid packs and Lyrica or Cymbalta (and I gained 70 pounds between the three). He was sympathetic but didn’t really do much to help me. I’ve been waiting for over 6 months to get scheduled with one here in Colorado. Fibromyalgia just isn’t important enough to the medical community. I definitely feel like I’m treated like a drug/attention seeking hypochondriac, especially when I wound up flaring badly when my GP was on vacation and had to go into a local urgent care. My new GP here has been helpful, even giving me a permanent placard for my vehicle and going out of his way to help find someone in the clinic that specializes in muscular-skeletal conditions and can do steroid injections (I have chronic tendonitis/bursitis of the shoulder and Achilles) in his office. I still feel like it is a fight, nonetheless!
Leza, This comment you wrote: (Fibromyalgia just isn’t important enough to the medical community. I definitely feel like I’m treated like a drug/attention seeking hypochondriac) is how I feel when my physician deals with me..I tell her I have read up on all information pertaining to this disease.She just will not prescribe narcotics to help with the pain.She say’s it’s not used for chronic pain. I explain my high tolerance to pain medication and how it help’s but she still will not listen to me.I am so fed up with dealing with this god awefull pain..I am so frustrated she get’s my High Blood Pressure up whenever I go to my appointments. Now she has changed that too. Fed up with doctor’s!!
An excellent blog where we report on fibromyalgia and their experiences.
not only are the prices going up but medicare is now not covering more meds that I take and with no increase in my income I can not afford to buy them. so in the long run I will be going to the E.R. for help and they can pay for that. 25 years of pain, 5 years of test and get told what I have only to be told after finding what helps me will no longer be covered is just wrong.
I’m just going into Medicare…could you tell me, Nancy, what drugs are NOT being covered? Thx, CA
Yeah we are expensive…yet I have not been help by any of the current treatments…so it seems like $ down the drain to me and make me feel like a burden.
YOU and I and anyone else with fibro are NOT burdens! We have a disease. My daughter who is an M.D. & a PhD. told me to NEVER to tell another doctor that I had fibro because they would “…KNOW YOU ARE NUTS!” How’s that for compassion and knowledge? (From my own daughter!) I always go back to the old saying, “Until you have walked a mile in my shoes….” only I’ve changed it to “Until you have walked a FOOT in my shoes, SHUT YOUR MOUTH!” Research is needed and as I have discovered it is really not whether it’s a man or a woman who’s doing the research…it’s that it’s being done at all! River Jewel? You’re not anyone’s burden and don’t let them tell you so…you’re worth more than ten of anyone who says differently! Carolanana
I find it pretty sickening that the researchers were using CBT in this study. What? To find out if we’re really all a bunch of hysterical women imagining and exaggerating the costs? I highly doubt if the patients were men that these behavioral studies would exist at all. NFA, this is NOT a good study to support by sharing with your membership. Try getting behind physical research studies, not joining leagues with those who would seek to use their sexist views to keep women with Fibromyalgia entrenched in the world of psychology, rather than find a legitimate biophysical cause and cure. Psychological studies on Fibromyalgia patients are sending us back to the 1800s as far as women rights and psychiatry is concerned, and the pharmaceutical companies are the ONLY ones to benefit. What if they HAD found a difference after CBT? Even if it was due to fibro fog, it would have given the psychology community more reason to doubt the existence of a physical problem.
YOU GO, GIRL!
Thank you. It’s a long hard road to a diagnosis of FMS and it isn’t the patients fault. Too bad they don’t study the medical profession on how much money they spend on finding a diagnosis.
As far as the stupid study goes, ‘WELL, DUH!”
And Phyliss? You are SO DEAD ON RIGHT I COULD HUG YOU! It them 15 yrs. with ME!
Again, regarding this article: BFD!
That’s because some idiot doctors take years to diagnose us. Give me a break. It’s not our fault. When I went to the Dr when my symptoms got to bad I couldn’t function, I went to Physical Therapy for 5 years, I went to neurologists, orthopedic surgeons, pain treatment center, tried different meds that didn’t work, lost work time and quality time with my family. I went from doctor to doctor with no easing of my suffering and they want to blame US! This really pisses me off. It took 8 years to finally get a diagnosis. They can kiss my …
….so WHY don’t they try to find a cure???????????
Yep. that sounds about right.