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There has been a growing interest in understanding the utilization patterns of patients with chronic conditions. Even though there is a lack of standard definition and identification of a chronic condition, these conditions, such as heart disease, cancer, obesity, and diabetes, are long-lasting and persistent health problems that require continuous care. Recent research has emphasized the disproportionate share of beneficiaries with chronic conditions in healthcare expenditures (Anderson, 2010). For example, patients with multiple chronic conditions can cost up to seven times as much as patients with only one chronic condition. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), chronic diseases are responsible for more than 75 percent of the 2.5 trillion spent annually on health care. Examples of efforts to estimate the spending or costs by individual conditions are shown in Exhibit 1.