Trial reportPloS one2014
The Charlson comorbidity index can be used prospectively to identify patients who will incur high future costs.
Trial report in PloS one, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT01761253 (Assessing Costs & Cost-variability Among Enrollees of Health Insurance Programs Utilizing Charlson's Comorbidity Index and Administrative Databases), which is not on this map. Cited by 117 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Assessing Costs & Cost-variability Among Enrollees of Health Insurance Programs Utilizing Charlson's Comorbidity Index and Administrative Databases
Who cites it
117 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Pooled it
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- Digital Health Technologies to Promote Healthy Eating and Physical Activity and Reduce Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Disease in Older Adults: A Pilot Study.The Journal of cardiovascular nursingTrial
- Robotic versus open pancreatoduodenectomy after completion of the learning curve: a propensity score-matched and CUSUM analyses of perioperative outcomes.Surgical endoscopy · 2026Article
- Identify Patients at Risk of HIV Using a Clinical Large Language Model from Electronic Health Records.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Identify Patients at Risk of HIV Using a Clinical Large Language Model from Electronic Health Records.Proceedings. IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics · 2026Article
- Fever of unknown origin: cost of illness study.Open medicine (Warsaw, Poland) · 2026Article
- Article
- Secular Trends in the Incidence of Encephalitis and Outcomes of Postencephalitic Epilepsy in Taiwan: A Nationwide Population-Based Study.Neuroepidemiology · 2026Article
- Total Payments and Out-of-Pocket Expenses for Surgical Hand Trauma Episodes.The Permanente journal · 2025Article
- Safety and Effectiveness of Apixaban in Very Elderly Patients with Atrial Fibrillation: A Retrospective Analysis of Japanese Administrative Claims Data.Cardiology and therapy · 2025Article
- Trajectories of cumulative fluid balance and the association with pressure injuries in ICU patients.International journal of nursing sciences · 2025Article
- Article
- Preventing "tipping points" in high comorbidity patients: A lifeline from health coaches - rationale, design and methods.Contemporary clinical trials · 2025Article
- Frequency and implications of malnutrition in systemic sclerosis.Rheumatology (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Impact of Comorbidities on Treatments and Outcomes of Systemic Sclerosis-Associated Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension.Canadian respiratory journal · 2025Article
- Healthcare Resource Utilization and Cost Implications of Commercial Blenderized versus Plant-Based Standard Enteral Formulas in Children and Adults in Post-Acute Care: A Retrospective Study.ClinicoEconomics and outcomes research : CEOR · 2025Article
- Article
- A proactive phone intervention for older adults to address loneliness identified by a health plan.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2024Article
57 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundReducing health care costs requires the ability to identify patients most likely to incur high costs. Our objective was to evaluate the ability of the Charlson comorbidity score to predict the individuals who would incur high costs in the subsequent year and to contrast its predictive ability with other commonly used predictors.
methodsWe contrasted the prior year Charlson comorbidity index, costs, Diagnostic Cost Group (DCG) and hospitalization as predictors of subsequent year costs from claims data of fund that provides comprehensive health benefits to a large union of health care workers. Total costs in the subsequent year was the principal outcome.
resultsOf the 181,764 predominantly Black and Latino beneficiaries, 70% were adults (mean age 45.7 years; 62% women). As the comorbidity index increased, total yearly costs increased significantly (P<.001). At lower comorbidity, the costs were similar across different chronic diseases. Using regression to predict total costs, top 5th and 10th percentile of costs, the comorbidity index, prior costs and DCG achieved almost identical explained variance in both adults and children. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: The comorbidity index predicted health costs in the subsequent year, performing as well as prior cost and DCG in identifying those in the top 5% or 10%. The comorbidity index can be used prospectively to identify patients who are likely to incur high costs.
trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT01761253.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.