Youth health insurance claims for conditions more often seen in older adults — like high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and sleep apnea — are climbing, a study by Fair Health found.
Fair Health analyzed health insurance claims from more than 60 insurers covering about 150 million people from 2011 to 2015. The study focused on claims for youth diagnosed with obesity or type 2 diabetes and claims associated with those patients, excluding claims submitted by government payers like Medicaid.
The CDC estimates only 0.25 percent of individuals under the age of 20 have type 1 or type 2 diabetes.
Here are four findings from the study.
1. Type 2 diabetes claims for individuals younger than 23 years old more than doubled between 2011 and 2015.
2. During the same period, prediabetes claims for children and youth rose 110 percent, hypertension claims jumped 67 percent and sleep apnea claims increased 161 percent, according to the study.
3. The five states with the highest number of claims for type 2 diabetes included Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Utah and South Dakota.
4. The five states with the lowest number of claims for type 2 diabetes included New Hampshire, Vermont, Delaware, Hawaii and Rhode Island.