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Objective To provide current estimates of the number of patients with prevalent systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) by major health insurance types in the US and to describe patient characteristics. Four large US health insurance claims databases were analyzed to represent different types of insurance coverage, including private insurance, Medicaid, and Medicare Supplemental. Results Overall unadjusted SLE prevalence per 100,000 persons in the US ranged from 150.1 (private insurance) to 252.9 (Medicare Supplemental insurance). Extrapolating to the US civilian population in 2016, we estimated roughly 345,000 to 404,000 prevalent SLE patients with private/Medicare insurance and 99,000 prevalent SLE patients with Medicaid insurance. Comorbidities, including renal failure/dialysis were commonly observed across multiple organ systems in SLE patients (8.4–21.1%). We estimated a larger number of prevalent SLE cases in the US civilian population than previous reports and observed extensive disease burden based on a 1-year cross-sectional analysis.

Additional file 1. Table S1.

Additional file 1. APPENDIX Fig. 1. Study design illustration for drug eras, switching and combination therapy classification. A) Drug eras are illustrated assuming a 30-day supply for each medication fill and allowing for a 30-day gap between the end of supply and the next fill. The drug era ends if another fill is not received within this gap. (B) If drug eras of two classes overlap at least 30 days (Drug Class B and Drug Class C) then it is classified as combination therapy, otherwise it is a switch between two classes (Drug Class A to Drug Class B).