Visual Abstract

Objective: Rates for non-traumatic lower-extremity amputations (LEA) have been declining, but concerns exist over disparities in rates between races/ethnicities. Our objective is to track changes in major LEA (MLEA) rates before and after the Affordable Care Act (ACA) among Medicare beneficiaries residing in the Diabetes Belt compared to those in the surrounding areas.

Methods: We used Medicare claims files for a sample of ~1 million Fee-for-Service beneficiaries in 2006 - 2015 to compute rates per 1000 patients with diabetes. The Diabetes Belt was identified by the CDC as 644 counties across Appalachian and southeastern counties in the US that had diabetes prevalence ≥ 11% in 2008.

Results: MLEA rates for the Diabetes Belt and surrounding counties as well as rates for Non-Hispanic (NH) Black and NH White are in Figure. Patients in the Belt experienced one full MLEA more per 1000 patients than those in the surrounding area. Although amputation rates declined rapidly in both areas, NH blacks consistently had > 3 times higher rates than NH whites in the Belt. Trends did not show noticeable changes in MLEAs before and after the ACA.

Discussion: Our data show persistent disparities in MLEA rates between the Diabetes Belt and surrounding counties. Racial disparities were much larger in the Belt. Targeted policies to prevent MLEAs among NH black patients are needed to reduce the disparities in this region.

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Disclosure

J. M. Lobo: None. S. Kim: None. H. Kang: None. T. L. Mcmurry: None. M. Sohn: None.

Funding

National Institutes of Health (R01DK113295)

© 2021 by the American Diabetes Association
2021
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