Chronic Disease Cost Calculator

Chronic diseases – such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes – are among the most prevalent, costly, and preventable of all health problems. Medicaid spending has grown rapidly in recent years and is placing a significant burden on state budgets. It has become increasingly important to help states quantify and understand the financial impact caused by chronic diseases, as well as to inform state decisions on investments in chronic disease prevention and disease management programs.

To help states estimate the burden and financial impact of chronic diseases among their Medicaid beneficiaries, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and RTI International, in partnership with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors, and the National Pharmaceutical Council, developed the Chronic Disease Cost Calculator.

The Chronic Disease Cost Calculator is a downloadable tool that supports states in:

1. Estimating state Medicaid expenditures for six chronic diseases – congestive heart failure, heart disease, stroke, hypertension, cancer, and diabetes.
2. Generating estimates of the costs to Medicaid of selected chronic diseases using customized inputs (e.g., prevalence rates and treatment costs).

It is important to note that the Cost Calculator does not provide exact prevalence and Medicaid costs of the chronic diseases for each state. All reported numbers are estimates and could differ from actual values. The uncertainty in the estimates arises from a number of factors: the combination of several data sources, different levels of geographic detail available in the source data, and the fact that the parameters of the statistical analysis are themselves estimates. Due to differences in data sources and methods, the estimates will not necessarily agree with other cost estimates. When discrepancies occur between Cost Calculator estimates and other state Medicaid estimates, users should contact their state Medicaid department and state health department for clarification.

For a detailed explanation of Cost Calculator methodology, including how it calculates prevalence and per person costs, refer to the Chronic Disease Cost Calculator Technical Appendix [PDF–740KB]. For a detailed explanation of how to use the Cost Calculator, refer to the Chronic Disease Cost Calculator User Guide [PDF–781KB].