Recognizing the Public Health Significance Among Older Women Virginia Miller, Dr.
Osteoporosis is a major public health problem, though often unrecognized.
Older women with skeletal fractures are candidates for evaluation of osteoporosis and may benefit from preventive therapy. Our research objective was to determine among older women the frequency of cases with medical claims for a diagnosis of fracture that had an accompanying diagnosis of osteoporosis. We used a large international corporation's medical claims administrative database. ICD-9 codes were used to identify cases by the primary, secondary, and tertiary diagnosis for claims. The total number of claims exceeded 191,000.