- The total estimated cost of diagnosed diabetes in 2017 is $327 billion, including $237 billion in direct medical costs and $90 billion in reduced productivity.
- For the cost categories analyzed, care for people with diagnosed diabetes accounts for one in four healthcare dollars in the U.S., and more than half of that expenditure is directly attributable to diabetes.
- People with diagnosed diabetes incur average medical expenditures of $16,750 per year, of which approximately $9,600 is attributed to diabetes.
- People with diagnosed diabetes, on average, have medical expenditures approximately 2.3 times higher than what expenditures would be in the absence of diabetes.
- Indirect costs of diabetes include increased absenteeism ($3.3 billion) and reduced productivity while at work ($26.9 billion) for the employed population; reduced productivity for those not in the labor force ($2.3 billion); inability to work because of disease-related disability ($37.5 billion); and lost productivity due to 277,000 premature deaths attributed to diabetes ($19.9 billion).
- After adjusting for inflation, economic costs of diabetes increased by 26 percent from 2012 to 2017 due to the increased prevalence of diabetes and the increased cost per person with diabetes.
- The growth in diabetes prevalence and medical costs is primarily among the population aged 65 years and older.
Source: Economic Costs of Diabetes in the U.S. in 2017, American Diabetes Association, https://doi.org/10.2337/dci18-0007