Objective: The purpose of this study was to analyze national data to understand the outpatient medical utilization and medical expenditure in patients with multiple sclerosis. Methods: The study used 2001-2005 National Health Insurance database, to select the main diagnosed disease was multiple sclerosis (ICD-9-CM: 340) among people with disabilities in the analyses. Result: The result showed that the number of multiple sclerosis patient, women was three times more than men. In the hospital level of medical care utilization, most of patients were more likely to use private corporate hospitals than other kinds of hospital. With regard to the treat departments, the results showed that most of the patient treated in the neurological department, the next was in the rehabilitation department, and traditional Chinese medicine department. Conclusion: In this study, we found that there were increasing trend in medical expenditure among patients with multiple sclerosis. We suggest the future study should exam carefully of the main reasons of this increasing trend and to improve quality of medical care for this vulnerable population as well.
