Orthostatic hypotension in Parkinson disease: Impact on health care utilization

Orthostatic hypotension (OH) represents a frequent yet overlooked source of disability in Parkinson disease (PD). In particular, its impact on health care utilization has been insufficiently examined. We sought to determine the differential health care utilization in PD patients with (PDOH+) and without OH (PDOH-).

We quantified the emergency room (ER) visits, hospitalizations, outpatient clinic evaluations, phone calls, and e-mails from PD patients on whom supine and orthostatic blood pressure (BP) measurements were obtained during routine clinical practice between June 2013 and July 2016. Comparative costs between PDOH+ and PDOH- were adjusted for age, disease duration, motor severity, levodopa equivalent daily dose, and Montreal Cognitive Assessment.

From a total of 317 PD patients, 29.3% were classified as PDOH+ (n = 93) and 70.6% as PDOH- (n = 224) over 30.2 ± 11.0 months, in which there were 247 hospitalizations, 170 ER visits, 2386 outpatient evaluations, and 4747 telephone calls/e-mails. After-adjusting for relevant covariates, PDOH+ was associated with more hospitalization days (+285%; p = 0.041), ER visits (+152%; p = 0.045), and telephone calls/e-mails than PDOH- (+142%; p = 0.009). The overall health care-related cost in PDOH+ was 2.5-fold higher than for PDOH- ($25,205 ± $6546 vs. $9831 ± $4167/person/year; p = 0.037).

OH increases health care utilization in PD independently from age, disease duration, motor severity, dopaminergic treatment, and cognitive function.