Chronic Pain Care for Women Cost Nearly $13 Billion in 2008

An estimated 12.1 million women age 18 and older reported suffering from chronic pain in 2008 as a result of underlying medical conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome, endometriosis, fibromyalgia and vulvodynia. Of these women, only 8.7 million reported receiving treatment that year at a total cost of $12.9 billion, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Among other findings:

• About 11.2 percent of non-Hispanic white women, 8.3 percent of non-Hispanic black women and 8.2 percent of Hispanic women had one or more of these chronic pain conditions; 8.4 percent, 5.4 percent and 5.5 percent received treatment for them, respectively.

• Of the $12.9 billion in total expenditures, nearly half ($5.7 billion) was spent for treatment in ambulatory settings such as a doctor’s office and another $2.4 billion was spent on prescription medicines.

• Among women age 18 to 64, nearly 15 percent of their medical expenses was paid out of pocket while private insurance paid 68 percent; Medicaid, 10 percent; Medicare, 3 percent; and other sources, 4 percent.

Chronic pain can be mild or excruciating, episodic or continuous, merely inconvenient or totally incapacitating. An individual may have two or more co- existing chronic pain conditions. While chronic pain can occur for many reasons, specific pain conditions related to women can have a significant impact on their lives. Conditions which affect women can include chronic fatigue syndrome, endometriosis, fibromyalgia, interstitial cystitis, temporomandibular joint dysfunction (TMJ), and vulvodynia.

This Statistical Brief presents estimates based on the Household Component
of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS-HC) on the use of and
expenditures for ambulatory care and prescribed medications to treat chronic
pain conditions (listed above) among women age 18 and older. All
differences between estimates noted in the text are statistically significant at
the 0.05 level or better.

The data in this AHRQ News and Numbers summary are taken from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), a detailed source of information on the health services used by Americans, the frequency with which they are used, the cost of those services, and how they are paid. For more information, go to Statistical Brief #342: Health Care Use and Expenditures for Pain Conditions among Women 18 and Older, U.S. Civilian Noninstitutionalized Population, 2008

What Is Vulvodynia? Vulvodynia, simply put, is chronic vulvar pain without an identifiable cause. The location, constancy and severity of the pain vary among sufferers. Some women experience pain in only one area of the vulva, while others experience pain in multiple areas. The most commonly reported symptom is burning, but women’s descriptions of the pain vary. One woman reported her pain felt like “acid being poured on my skin,” while another described it as “constant knife-like pain.”