Abstract
BackgroundHypertension represents a high burden of disease in different healthcare systems. Recent guideline published in 2017 by the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology has generated a debate between clinicians and policymakers due to the lowering of diagnosis threshold and the subsequent increase of the prevalence and healthcare costs. No empirical research exists addressing the question about the pressure on healthcare costs generated by new standards. This study aims to quantify the impact on the hypertension diagnosis and treatment costs for healthcare system using the new hypertension guideline.MethodsWe conducted a budget impact analysis from a Colombianhealthcare payer’s perspective with a 3-year time horizon (2018–2020), in which we estimated the difference in total medical care costs between previous hypertension cut-off points (140/90 mmHg) and new guideline cut-off points (130/80 mmHg).ResultsOur results show that the impact of the adoption of the new hypertension guideline would represent a decrease close to 22% in total annual high blood pressure costs in Colombia. This reduction is mainly driven by a lower number of cardiovascular complications. It is worth noting that these results should be taken with caution due to local available data.ConclusionsA high-middle income country such as Colombia should carry out an exhaustive revision of the recommendations of the new hypertension guideline, due to its high probability of saving medical treatment costs for the healthcare system.
Highlights
Hypertension represents a high burden of disease in different healthcare systems
This study aims to quantify the potential impact on the hypertension treatment costs for Colombian healthcare system by adopting the new cut-off points proposed by the new American Heart Association (AHA)/American College of Cardiology (ACC)’s guideline to both diagnosis and management of hypertension
The budget impact model estimated the total medical care cost of adopting the new hypertension guideline based on the size of eligible patient population and the monotherapy treatment costs
Summary
Recent guideline published in 2017 by the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology has generated a debate between clinicians and policymakers due to the lowering of diagnosis threshold and the subsequent increase of the prevalence and healthcare costs. Guevara‐Cuellar et al Cost Eff Resour Alloc (2018) 16:32 for hypertension will make even harder to accomplish the treatment goals proposed by previous guidelines [4–6]. It is unknown the effect of the new guideline on the already overloaded function of primary care physicians [4–6]. The new cut-off points for hypertension may lead to a higher rate of adverse effects derived from the treatment of newly diagnosed patients
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