Updating standardized unit costs from a societal perspective for health economic evaluation

Abstract

The aim of this work was to update the 2015 unit costs (UC) for the monetary valuation of health-related resource use from a societal perspective for the years 2019 and 2020 in Germany. The update follows the methodology of Bock et al. 2015. Based on the newly established care levels, UC for care degree 1 to 5 are now provided. To account for change in price trends during the Covid-19 pandemic, average growth rates in UC are shown from 2011-2019 and compared to 2019-2020. Updates of UC for the outpatient medical sector, remedies and aids, hospitals, (in)formal care services, and rehabilitation for 2019 and 2020 are provided. The updated UC can be used as reference values for the monetary valuation of individual resource use in health economic evaluations in Germany.