Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Discovery Employee Benefits says it has seen a huge spike in cardiometabolic and cancer claims, recording a tripling of these since 2020.
Annual Group Risk claims data released by Discovery Employee Benefits, which insures more than half a million people through its Group Risk benefits provided to about 3 000 employers countrywide, show that claims for cardiometabolic conditions have more than tripled since 2020, with a 200% increase in claims just over the past year, reports BusinessLIVE.
Cardiometabolic disorders relate to several interrelated risk factors including hypertension, elevated blood sugar, abdominal obesity and triglycerides.
The data also show a dramatic rise in cancer death claims, compared with pre-pandemic levels, rising from two a month recorded by Group Risk in 2018, to six a month this year.
Guy Chennells, head of product at Discovery Employee Benefits, said their data showed “a definite decline in people going for cancer screenings during COVID, which corresponds to a drop in cancer treatments for all stages of cancer being recorded by the Discovery Health Medical Scheme (DHMS)”.
This means that people aren’t detecting their cancers as early as they otherwise would have, because they’re screening less, he added.
The catalysts for the claims spike, he said, were all related to COVID, to “long COVID”, a marked decline in people having annual health checks and screenings, and a reduction in regular exercise.
Health checks
“International data suggest that long COVID increases the risk of heart attacks and stroke disease because of the heightened risk of blood clotting conditions,” he said. “But behaviour change, which began during the pandemic, is also contributing to these illnesses.”
Generalised health checks declined by as much as 50% during the pandemic compared with screening levels recorded during 2019. Additionally, exercise levels dropped 12% during COVID-19.
In March 2020, at the announcement of the first hard lockdown to contain the outbreak, Discovery Group Risk recorded a three-month rolling average of 87 deaths per month. This figure spiked at 249 deaths per month by August 2021 during the third wave of the outbreak.
In the three months to July 2022, it had yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, with 111 deaths per month recorded on average. This elevated trend holds true for unnatural and natural deaths, with the former trending above levels seen during and before the pandemic and the latter having declined markedly since then, though still not returning to prepandemic levels.
BusinessLIVE article – Discovery sees 200% rise in heart-related claims since Covid-19 (Open access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Discovery analysis: COVID-19 death claims exceed all others combined
Healthcare workers make up 60% of Discovery Life’s claims
Discovery cushions blow of 2022 premium increases for its members
Discovery’s trend analysis: Leading causes of death of insured clients