Health Care Utilization by Patients With Chronic Pelvic Pain

Isabel Green, Morgan Briggs, Diana Encalada Soto, Kristin Cole, Jenna N. Wygant, Tatnai L. Burnett, Xuan Zhu, Innie Chen, Lindsey R. Sangaralingam, Viengneesee Thao
In: Obstetrics & Gynecology · 2024 · vol. 144(1) , pp. 4–11 · doi:10.1097/aog.0000000000005595 · PMID:38696811 · W4396593073
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⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-06 ⓘ

Patients with chronic pelvic pain utilized healthcare services more frequently, including office visits, emergency department visits, imaging, and hysterectomies, compared to those without the condition.

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This study analyzed deidentified administrative claims data from the OptumLabs Data Warehouse to characterize health care utilization patterns in adult women diagnosed with chronic pelvic pain between 2016 and 2019. The researchers compared a cohort of 18,400 patients with chronic pelvic pain against matched controls without the condition, examining outcomes over a 12-month period following diagnosis. Results indicated that patients with chronic pelvic pain experienced significantly higher rates of outpatient visits, emergency department encounters, diagnostic imaging, and hysterectomies, alongside greater prevalence of chronic overlapping pain conditions. Although the paper does not explicitly discuss endometriosis or adenomyosis; it was included in the corpus via a keyword match in the upstream search index.

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Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To describe the patterns of health care utilization among patients with chronic pelvic pain. METHODS: Deidentified administrative claims data from the OptumLabs Data Warehouse were used. Adult female patients who had their first medical claim for chronic pelvic pain between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2019, were included. Utilization was examined for 12 months after the index diagnosis. The greedy nearest neighbor matching method was used to identify a control group of individuals without chronic pelvic pain. Comparisons were made between those with and those without chronic pelvic pain using χ 2 tests for categorical data and Wilcoxon rank-sum tests for continuous data. RESULTS: In total, 18,400 patients were analyzed in the chronic pelvic pain cohort. Patients with chronic pelvic pain had a higher rate of chronic overlapping pain conditions. Patients with chronic pelvic pain had higher rates of health care utilization across all queried indices. They had more outpatient office visits; 55.5% had 10 or more office visits. Patients with chronic pelvic pain showed higher utilization of the emergency department (ED) (6.3 visits vs 1.9 visits; P <.001). Urine culture and pelvic ultrasonography were the most utilized tests. One-third of patients with chronic pelvic pain utilized physical therapy (PT), and 13% utilized psychological or behavioral therapy. Patients with chronic pelvic pain had higher rates of hysterectomy (8.9% vs 0.6%). The average total health care costs per patient with chronic pelvic pain per year was $12,254. CONCLUSION: Patients with chronic pelvic pain have higher rates of chronic overlapping pain conditions and undergo more ED visits, imaging tests, and hysterectomies than patients without chronic pelvic pain. Improving access to multidisciplinary care, increasing utilization of interventions such as PT and psychological or behavioral therapy, and reducing ED utilization may be possible targets to help reduce overall health care costs and improve patient care.
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Objective

To describe the patterns of health care utilization among patients with chronic pelvic pain.

Methods

Deidentified administrative claims data from the OptumLabs Data Warehouse were used. Adult female patients who had their first medical claim for chronic pelvic pain between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2019, were included. Utilization was examined for 12 months after the index diagnosis. The greedy nearest neighbor matching method was used to identify a control group of individuals without chronic pelvic pain. Comparisons were made between those with and those without chronic pelvic pain using χ2 tests for categorical data and Wilcoxon rank-sum tests for continuous data.

Results

In total, 18,400 patients were analyzed in the chronic pelvic pain cohort. Patients with chronic pelvic pain had a higher rate of chronic overlapping pain conditions. Patients with chronic pelvic pain had higher rates of health care utilization across all queried indices. They had more outpatient office visits; 55.5% had 10 or more office visits. Patients with chronic pelvic pain showed higher utilization of the emergency department (ED) (6.3 visits vs 1.9 visits; P<.001). Urine culture and pelvic ultrasonography were the most utilized tests. One-third of patients with chronic pelvic pain utilized physical therapy (PT), and 13% utilized psychological or behavioral therapy. Patients with chronic pelvic pain had higher rates of hysterectomy (8.9% vs 0.6%). The average total health care costs per patient with chronic pelvic pain per year was $12,254.

Conclusion

Patients with chronic pelvic pain have higher rates of chronic overlapping pain conditions and undergo more ED visits, imaging tests, and hysterectomies than patients without chronic pelvic pain. Improving access to multidisciplinary care, increasing utilization of interventions such as PT and psychological or behavioral therapy, and reducing ED utilization may be possible targets to help reduce overall health care costs and improve patient care. According to claims-based data, patients with chronic pelvic pain had higher rates of health care utilization compared with a matched patient cohort across all indices.

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Condition tags

chronic_pelvic_pain

Citation neighborhood

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References (27)

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