Socio-Economics Perspectives of Healthcare in Sleep Apnea

The high prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is closely tied to the country's obesity epidemic with vast implications to the United States healthcare system (1,2). Using cross-sectional analyses, the direct cost of untreated OSA has been estimated at over 3 billion dollars annually (3). This cost is magnified by indirect expenses (including lost income and work productivity), absenteeism, and accidents, making the appropriate management of OSA a noteworthy public health issue (4-6). There is a paucity of data in literature evaluating the economic impact of managing OSA in the United States (7), the majority of published reports being derived from other countries.

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