The medical diagnostic code created last year to allow doctors to document post-covid conditions is called U09.9 and it is the most succinct and dispassionate name for long Covid.
The results of a large new study show that the impact of the code on people's health and the American health care system has been long-term.
The vast majority of the 78,252 patients who were found in the largest database of private health insurance claims in the United States were diagnosed with the U09.9 code.
The number of people who received a diagnosis was large because the study only covered the first four months after the code was introduced, said Dr. Steves, a clinical academic and physician at King's College London.
The initial coronaviruses infections did not make 76 percent of the patients sick enough to require hospitalization, according to a study conducted by a nonprofit organization that focuses on health care costs and insurance issues. They were experiencing symptoms that were later diagnosed as post-covid conditions, including breathing problems, coughing, fatigue and hypertension.
It is generating a pandemic of people who were not hospitalized but who ended up with an increased disability, according to Dr. Paddy Ssentongo, an assistant professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Penn State.
Two-thirds of the patients had pre-existing health conditions in their medical records, but nearly a third did not, a much larger percentage than the doctor would have expected.
Robin Gelburd, the president of FAIR Health, said that the organization decided to publish data from the first four months because of the importance.
Some of the questions that are not addressed in the report, including providing detail on some patients, are being worked on by researchers.
Ms. Gelburd said that the organization would analyze how many patients were vaccine free. In the last half of the year, most of the patients in the study were infections. Four and a half months after their infection, patients were still experiencing long Covid symptoms that qualified them for a diagnosis.
The findings suggest that long Covid could have a huge impact on people in the prime of their lives. Thirty five percent of the patients were between the ages of 36 to 50, while thirty three percent were between the ages of 51 to 64. Almost 4% of the patients were younger than 12 years old, while 7 percent were between 13 and 22 years old.
Six percent of the patients were 65 and older, a proportion that most likely reflects the fact that patients covered by the regular Medicare program weren't included in the study. They were more likely to have had pre-existing chronic medical conditions than the younger groups.
Researchers said that the insurance data did not include information about the race or ethnicity of patients.
Ms. Gelburd said that the analysis was evaluated by an independent reviewer but not formally peer-reviewed, and that it calculated a risk score for the patients. The study found that the risk scores for patients in every age group went up after they were exposed to Covid.
Ms. Gelburd said that the scores suggested that the repercussions of long Covid are not limited to increased medical spending. They show how many people are leaving their jobs, how many are being given disability status, and how many are missing school.
Since low-income communities have been disproportionately affected by the virus and have less access to health care, the study almost certainly understates the scope and burden of long Covid.
Sixty percent of the patients with the post- Covid diagnosis were female, according to the study. There were roughly as many males as females in the oldest and youngest age groups.
Dr. Steves said that there was a female majority in terms of this condition.
The insurance claims show that almost one-quarter of the post- Covid patients had respiratory symptoms, nearly one-fifth had coughs, and 17 percent had been diagnosed with fatigue, a far-reaching category that could include issues like brain fog and exhaustion that gets worse after physical or mental Abnormal heartbeats and sleep disorders were common issues.
The study found that generalized anxiety disorder was more common in younger people than in older people.
Almost one-quarter of people who contracted Covid after one month sought medical treatment for new conditions, according to a study published last year by FAIR Health.
The new study tried to determine how common certain symptoms were before the patients were diagnosed with post-covid conditions. During long Covid, it was found that some typically uncommon health issues were more likely to emerge. The study said that certain types of brain-related disorders occurred two times more often in patients with long Covid.
Patients who were hospitalized for their initial infections were more likely to have long-term symptoms than patients who were not hospitalized, according to the report. About 24 percent of the patients with a post-covid condition had been hospitalized, more of them male than female, according to the report.
Medical experts said that many people with mild or moderate initial illness will end up with new health problems because they don't need to be hospitalized.
Ms. Gelburd and medical experts said that as doctors become more familiar with the U09.9 code, they might use it in different circumstances than they did in the first four months.
In the future, doctors will ask patients if they have ever been diagnosed with a post- Covid condition, just as they ask about other previous medical problems.
He said that post-covid syndrome is going to become one of the most common pre-existing comorbidities going forward.
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