Background

Infants covered by Medicaid have higher respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) hospitalization rates than those with commercial insurance, but findings are limited to the inpatient setting. This birth cohort study describes healthcare encounters for RSV across all settings among infants covered by Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Methods

Medicaid claims for infants born and residing in Arizona (AZ), California (CA), Florida (FL), Michigan (MI), North Carolina (NC), New York (NY), and Texas (TX) were analyzed for first diagnosis of RSV in 2016–2018 using International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision codes. Encounters on the day of first diagnosis were examined by setting in 7 states and by setting and race in CA, FL, and NC.

Results

A total of 80 945 infants were diagnosed with RSV in 7 states in 2016–2018. The highest encounter rates for first RSV diagnosis were in the emergency department (ED) in 5 states (11.0–33.4 per 1000 in AZ, CA, FL, MI, and NY) and outpatient setting in 2 states (54.8 and 68.5 per 1000 in TX and NC). Significantly higher outpatient encounter rates were found in CA and NC for White infants compared to non-White infants. In NC, ED encounter rates were significantly higher for non-White infants than White infants, whereas in CA, the rates were comparable. In these 2 states, hospitalization rates were similar across groups. In FL, compared with White infants, non-White infants had significantly higher encounter rates in each setting on the day of first RSV diagnosis.

Conclusions

This is the first study to describe the burden of RSV by setting and race. Medicaid infants who are newly diagnosed with RSV have the highest burden in ED and outpatient settings.