(PL36) GENITAL HERPES IN COMMERCIALLY-INSURED CLAIMS DATA, MARKETSCAN 2022

Background:
Genital herpes is a common sexually transmitted infection but is not nationally reported. Genital herpes is caused by two viruses: herpes simplex type 1 (HSV-1) and herpes simplex type 2 (HSV-2).  Herpes infection may be overlooked due to asymptomatic infection and an absence of routine screening. Recent prevalence estimates for HSV1 and HSV2 were approximately 18 and a half million people infected in the United States. In this analysis, we used recent claims data to determine the number of healthcare claims with a diagnosis of genital herpes  and provided demographic description of these visits.

Methods:
We analyzed the latest available complete 2022 Merative™ MarketScan® commercially-insured medical claims data, available December 2023, to determine the number of claims associated with any genital herpes. Claims with any diagnosis containing  ICD codes (A60, A6000, A600, A6001, A6002, A6003, A6004, A6009, A601, A609) were termed genital herpes. Multiple claims per enrollee were aggregated to provide a unique enrollee with multiple claims. These claims were stratified by sex, geographic regions, and age groups. Descriptive statistics were calculated with SAS 9.4.

Results:
A total of 197,445 out of 17,645,244 unique enrollees had insurance claims related to any genital herpes diagnoses in 2022.  Of those, 65% were female, 35% were male, 53% were 18-34 years old vs 21% overall, 21% were 35-44 years old, 52% resided in the South vs 46% overall, and 20% resided in the Northeast region.

Conclusion:
These commercially-insured medical claims data provide a snapshot of enrollees with healthcare access who have received a diagnosis of genital herpes. These findings suggest that younger adults (18-34) residing in the South are an important demographic group seeking healthcare for genital herpes. Monitoring healthcare claims data for general demographic information on patients with herpes may provide an additional layer of surveillance and trends for understanding herpes morbidity in the US.