PND21 - The Annual Treatment and Rehabillitation Costs of Patients with Paraplegia in the Private Health Care Setting in Greece

Abstract

To examine the annual resource use and related treatment costs for patients with paraplegia in Greece in 2011. This was a prospective study, which recorded data from all inpatient and outpatient visits to Olympion Hospital, a private rehabilitation center in Patras, during 2011. Patient files, which recorded the patients’ demographic, clinical and economic/ cost data, were created. Direct costs included medical and pharmaceutical costs, lab tests and direct non-medical costs, which were retrieved through the Center’s IT system. Indirect cost data consisted of the loss of individual and family income and were elicited via face-to-face or telephone interviews with the patients or their relatives. Each patient participating in the study signed an informed consent. A total of 300 patients were treated in the rehabilitation center in 2011, of which 36 (12%) suffered from paraplegia. Of these, 20 were treated in the inpatient setting and 16 in the outpatient setting. The total average annual cost of treating patients with paraplegia was estimated at €101,228; the average costs of the inpatient and outpatient settings were €86,699 (€74,296 direct cost + €12,403 indirect cost) and €14,529 (€9,445 direct cost and €5,084 indirect cost) respectively. The mean number of hospitalization days for inpatients were 178. The key cost driver for inpatients was daycare (hospitalization, medical and nursing care, therapies). The annual cost of treating patients with paraplegia in the private health care sector in Greece is high. This study is the first cost study in this disease area and additional studies should be undertaken in order to acquire a more complete picture of the cost of managing disease, in both the private and public health care sectors.