Abstract
The aim of this study is to evaluate the direct diagnostic costs for disease groups and other variables (such as gender, age, seasons) that are related to the direct diagnostic costs based on a 3-year data. The population of the study consisted of 31,401 patients who applied to family medicine outpatient clinic in Turkey between January 1st, 2016 and December 31st, 2018. With this study, we determined in which disease groups of the family medicine outpatient clinic were most frequently admitted. Then, total and average diagnostic costs for these disease groups were calculated. Three-year data gave us the opportunity to examine the trend in diagnostic costs. Based on this, we demonstrated which diseases' total and average diagnostic costs increased or decreased during 3 years. Moreover, we examined how diagnostic costs showed a trend in both Turkish liras and USA dollars’ rate for 3 years. Finally, we analysed whether the diagnostic costs differed according to variables such as age, gender and season. There has been relatively little analysis on the diagnostic costs in the previous literature. Therefore, we expect to contribute to both theorists and healthcare managers for diagnostic costs with this study.
Highlights
Diagnosis of diseases in health services is quite important for individuals, society and national economy (Miller, 1976)
The total number of patients who applied to outpatient clinic was found the highest (30.70%) in the Spring season and Summer season followed that with a total of 7,712 (24.60%) patients
The aim of this study is to examine the diagnostic costs by year and International Classification of Diseases 10 (ICD-10) diagnosis groups in a family medicine outpatient clinic
Summary
Diagnosis of diseases in health services is quite important for individuals, society and national economy (Miller, 1976). Early diagnosis both affects the patient's quality of life and reduces treatment costs It is known that every procedure performed on behalf of diagnosis of the diseases increases the costs in health services and imposes a significant burden on the national economy (Beinfeld & Gazelle, 2005; Smith-Bindman, Miglioretti, & Larson, 2008; Ciarrapico et al, 2017). The number of outpatient clinic visits have increased. We expect that increased number of outpatient clinic visits led to an increase in diagnostic costs. There has been a lack of statistical information on diagnostic cost of outpatient clinics
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