INTRODUCTION:There are several methods to cost hospital contacts when estimating the cost effectiveness of a new intervention. In England, the National Insitute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends the use of diagnosis-related group (DRG)-based costs as a valuable way of costing hospital resource use. There are three main sources of unit costs of a DRG: (i) tariffs as used for reimbursement purposes, (ii) benchmarking finished consultant episode (FCE)-level reference costs and (iii) benchmarking spell-level reference costs.The purpose of this work is to compare the implications of choosing a particular source of DRG-based unit costs when conducting an economic evaluation.METHODS:As a case study, we used a cost-utility model developed to compare secondary fracture prevention models of care for hip fracture patients (1). A Markov model was derived from large primary and hospital care administrative datasets in England. Utilities were informed by a meta-regression of thirty-two studies. Hospital resource use (inpatient, outpatient, critical care and emergency care) was valued using the three different 2014–15 DRG-based unit costs and regression-based costing models were derived from 33,000 hip fracture patients to inform the health states of the model (2). For each source of DRG-based costs, we calculated mean life years, Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) and costs for a representative male and female associated with three models of care: (i) orthogeriatrician (OG)-led, (ii) nurse-led fracture liaison services and (iii) usual care.RESULTS:Using the benchmarking FCE-level DRG-based costs, the OG-led model was estimated to be the most effective model of care (1.77 QALYs, 95 percent Confidence Interval, CI 1.56-1.98) at a threshold of GBP30,000/QALY. However, it also resulted in the highest costs per patient. We will report the cost-effectiveness results using the two remaining DRG-based costs.CONCLUSIONS:Choosing a particular hospital costing method may have an impact on economic evaluations. We will reflect on the implications for the estimated hospital costs, decision uncertainty and adoption of models of care.
The Impact Of Hospital Costing Methods On Economic Evaluations
Manetti, Stefania
Writing – Original Draft Preparation
;
2017-01-01
Abstract
INTRODUCTION:There are several methods to cost hospital contacts when estimating the cost effectiveness of a new intervention. In England, the National Insitute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends the use of diagnosis-related group (DRG)-based costs as a valuable way of costing hospital resource use. There are three main sources of unit costs of a DRG: (i) tariffs as used for reimbursement purposes, (ii) benchmarking finished consultant episode (FCE)-level reference costs and (iii) benchmarking spell-level reference costs.The purpose of this work is to compare the implications of choosing a particular source of DRG-based unit costs when conducting an economic evaluation.METHODS:As a case study, we used a cost-utility model developed to compare secondary fracture prevention models of care for hip fracture patients (1). A Markov model was derived from large primary and hospital care administrative datasets in England. Utilities were informed by a meta-regression of thirty-two studies. Hospital resource use (inpatient, outpatient, critical care and emergency care) was valued using the three different 2014–15 DRG-based unit costs and regression-based costing models were derived from 33,000 hip fracture patients to inform the health states of the model (2). For each source of DRG-based costs, we calculated mean life years, Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) and costs for a representative male and female associated with three models of care: (i) orthogeriatrician (OG)-led, (ii) nurse-led fracture liaison services and (iii) usual care.RESULTS:Using the benchmarking FCE-level DRG-based costs, the OG-led model was estimated to be the most effective model of care (1.77 QALYs, 95 percent Confidence Interval, CI 1.56-1.98) at a threshold of GBP30,000/QALY. However, it also resulted in the highest costs per patient. We will report the cost-effectiveness results using the two remaining DRG-based costs.CONCLUSIONS:Choosing a particular hospital costing method may have an impact on economic evaluations. We will reflect on the implications for the estimated hospital costs, decision uncertainty and adoption of models of care.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
