ER visit rate 92 per 1,000 for diabetes patients 45 and older

(HealthDay)—In 2015, the rate of diabetes-related visits to the emergency department was 92 per 1,000 persons for those aged 45 and older, according to a February data brief published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.

Margaret J. Hall, Ph.D., from the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Md., and colleagues examined data from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey to quantify emergency department visits by patients aged 45 years and older with diabetes.

The researchers found that in 2015 people with diabetes aged 45 years and older made an estimated 12 million emergency department visits, a rate of 92 per 1,000 persons. From 2012 to 2015, the percentage of all emergency department visits by patients aged 45 and older increased for those with diabetes. Those aged 75 and older had a diabetes emergency department visit rate that was about 2.5 times higher than the rate for those aged 45 to 64 years. Overall, 24 percent of the diabetes emergency department visits for those aged 45 to 64 years had Medicare as the primary expected source of payment, compared with 14 percent of those for patients without diabetes in the same age group.

"Twenty-two percent of the diabetes emergency department visits for those aged 45 to 64 ended in hospital admission compared with 12 percent of the visits by patients without diabetes in that age group," the authors write.