OBJECTIVES: Long-term health effects of chronic SARS-CoV-2 infection (long COVID) are receiving increasing recognition, but clinical understanding and management remain in flux. An ICD-10-CM code for long COVID was deployed in October 2021. The objective of this research was to characterize demographics, concurrent diagnoses, and treatment patterns among patients with a long COVID diagnosis code in the United States.

METHODS: Patients from 4 integrated delivery networks and 1 children’s hospital within the OMNY Health Database with a long COVID diagnosis code (ICD-10-CM: U09.9) from 2021-2023 were included. Demographic characteristics were tabulated at first long COVID diagnosis. Concurrent diagnoses were defined as those on the same visit as long COVID diagnosis, and treatments were limited to a 14-day window following the diagnosis date.

RESULTS: A total of 17,542 long COVID patients were included. Distributions of gender (65% female), race (80% white, 13% black, 7% other among known values), and ethnicity (85% not Hispanic or Latino among known values) were tabulated. The mean (SD) age was 53 (18) years. The most commonly occurring concurrent diagnoses were breathing abnormalities (25%), cough (22%), hypertension (17%), malaise and fatigue (15%), disorders of lipoprotein metabolism (14%), anxiety disorders (11%), and overweight/obesity (10%). Common procedures included radiology (34%), pathology/laboratory (22%), and cardiovascular (17%). Surgical procedures were also seen on the respiratory (11%), cardiovascular (8%), nervous (8%), and integumentary (7%) systems. Asthma/COPD medications were the most often prescribed/administered (25%), followed by antibacterial agents (13%), antidepressants (12%), and peptic ulcer therapy (10%).

CONCLUSIONS: Results provide insights into characteristics and treatment patterns immediately following long COVID patients. As new data continues to become available, future analyses would be helpful to understand how management of these patients continue to evolve.