Publication date: Jul 22, 2026
During the diagnosis week, adjusted Medicare spending was $7933. 13 (95% CI, 7904. 12-7962. 14) higher among beneficiaries with COVID-19 than among matched control individuals. Beneficiaries with a documented COVID-19 diagnosis were matched 1:5 with beneficiaries without COVID-19 according to demographic, clinical, and geographic characteristics. Although differences persisted across all variant periods, the magnitude of these differences generally became smaller over time, with only modest variation between variants. Medicare spending demonstrated a similar pattern. During the acute phase, beneficiaries with COVID-19 had an adjusted increase of 1. 78 (95% CI, 1. 78-1. 81) combined hospitalizations, emergency department visits, and hospital outpatient visits. They used traditional Medicare claims data collected between February 2020 and November 2022. Overall, 84. 9% of participants were aged 65 years and older, 54. 1% were women, 21. 7% were dually eligible for Medicaid, and 86. 9% lived in urban areas. Please see the original reference for a full list of disclosures.
| Concepts | Keywords |
|---|---|
| Beneficiaries | |
| Care | |
| Ci | |
| Covid | |
| Diagnosis | |
| Infection | |
| Long | |
| Matched | |
| Medicare | |
| Spending | |
| Symptoms | |
| Term | |
| Utilization | |
| Week | |
| Weeks |
Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | MESH | COVID-19 |
| disease | MESH | infection |
| pathway | REACTOME | SARS-CoV-2 Infection |
| disease | MESH | strain |
| disease | MESH | included |
| disease | MESH | chronic conditions |
| disease | MESH | hyperlipidemia |
| disease | MESH | arthritis |
| disease | MESH | ischemic heart disease |
| disease | MESH | heart failure |
| disease | MESH | emergency |
| disease | MESH | long COVID |
| disease | MESH | asymptomatic infections |