The latest health check from Grand Valley State University researchers shows health care costs for people with chronic conditions are higher in areas north and southwest of Grand Rapids. Researchers worked with data provided by Blue Cross, Blue Shield of Michigan, Blue Care Network and Priority Health.
“So, the conditions we looked at are asthma, coronary artery disease, depression, diabetes, hyperlipidemia and low back pain.”
That’s Kevin Callison. He’s an assistant professor of economics at GVSU’s Seidman College of Business and one of the researchers presenting the 2016 Health Check report.
“What we found this year, 2013 to 2014, is that all the expenditures for all these conditions have gone up in West Michigan.”
Callison says it’s not a surprise they went up and even though they have, they remain generally lower in the Grand Rapids area than in the Detroit region; however, this year, with the ability to break the numbers down by zip code, they did find higher costs for coronary artery disease in KOMA, which stands for Kent, Ottawa, Muskegon and Allegan counties. Not only that, but certain zips codes, mainly in Newaygo, southern Allegan and Van Buren counties reported consistently higher expenditures for nearly all chronic diseases.
“If we’re spending twice as much in Newaygo county than in Kent County on coronary artery disease and for certain zip codes and we’re not seeing better health outcomes because of that additional spending then that represents an inefficiency and so, it would be nice if we could address the potential explanations for the expenditure differences unfortunately we cant. But there are people with the data available who can.”
Callison says the hope is insurers and others will take a look at the information and use it for positive changes. The study also looked at the impact of the Affordable Care Act on Michigan businesses and their health insurance offerings, along with a new survey asking residents about health insurance coverage and access. The complete report can be found at www.gvsu.edu/vphealth.
