MAJOR DEPRESSIVE DISORDER (MDD)

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) can affect how a person feels, thinks, and manages everyday life. MDD is often characterized by sadness or loss of interest, with changes in sleep, appetite, energy, concentration, movement, or feelings of self-worth. Early support and better access to treatment may improve employee well-being and help reduce avoidable health-care use and costs. Using its commercial claims data warehouse, the Missouri Health Value Collaborative (MHVC) looked at MDD prevalence, health-care use, treatment patterns, and prescription fills among commercially insured Missouri residents aged 18–64 from 2019 to 2023. The findings suggest that MDD may be underdiagnosed, and that costly treatment gaps may exist.

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MHVC’s claims analysis found that only 5.5% of commercially insured Missouri adults had a documented MDD diagnosis in 2023, while SAMHSA estimated that 9% of Missouri adults experienced a major depressive episode.[1] Although these figures reflect different populations and measurement approaches (self-reported episodes vs. medical claim diagnoses), the gap between them is suggestive of underdiagnosis. MHVC’s analysis found that women were more than twice as likely as men to have a documented MDD diagnosis, and the average age of members with MDD was 40 years.

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MDD was associated with higher health-care use and costs. In 2023, members with a MDD diagnosis incurred over $12,000 more in annual medical and pharmacy spending and were nearly 3 times more likely to visit the emergency department than members without a MDD diagnosis. Nearly one in four members with a MDD diagnosis had no observed prescription fill for MDD treatment, while opioid prescription fills were about 2.5 times higher among members with MDD compared to those without. These findings highlight the importance of earlier identification, better access to treatment, and stronger follow-up after diagnosis.

Check out the infographic for more information!
 

MHVC thanks Champion for Health Care Value, AbbVie, for contributions to this project and continued support of MHVC’s community work.

Missouri Health Value Collaborative commercial claims analysis, 2019–2023. Data were based on a sample of commercially insured Missouri residents aged 18–64.

[1]https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt56957/2024-nsduh-sae-tables-percent-csvs/2024-nsduh-sae-tables-percent.pdf