Managing costs and care for chronic idiopathic constipation.

For decades, chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC) has been one of the most common chronic functional gastrointestinal disorders encountered by clinicians. Common comorbidities include depression, diabetes, functional dyspepsia, hypothyroidism, overweight, obesity, and neurological disorders. CIC imposes a large economic burden on the American healthcare system with estimated costs of 1912 to 522 in 2007 US dollars per patient per year....