Revised Cost Estimates of Medicaid Recipients With Serious Mental Illness and HIV-AIDS

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this brief report is to provide accurate 1996 baseline cost estimates for persons with co-occurring HIV and serious mental illness by revising original figures previously reported by the authors. METHODS: Data were examined for 23,729 adults who were enrolled in Medicaid in 1996. A comparison of utilization and cost of services was done for four groups: serious mental illness and HIV-AIDS, serious mental illness only, HIV-AIDS only, and neither condition. RESULTS: In 1996 persons with both illnesses had the highest annual medical and behavioral health treatment expenditures at $20,038 per person, followed by persons with only HIV-AIDS at $14,714. The cost of care for the HIV-AIDS population, regardless of the presence of serious mental illness, averaged $16,253 per person. CONCLUSIONS: Although the absolute costs found in this study were much higher than those reported in the authors' previous study, both studies showed that those with co-occurring illnesses had the highest cost.