Estimating the Economic Burden of Osteoporotic Vertebral Fracture among Elderly Korean Women. |
Hye Young Kang, Dae Ryong Kang, Young Hwa Jang, Sung Eun Park, Won Jung Choi, Seong Hwan Moon, Kyu Hyun Yang |
1Graduate School of Public Health, Yonsei University, Korea. hykang@yuhs.ac 2Clinical Trials Center, Severance Hospital, Yonsei University Health System, Korea. 3Institute of Health Services Research, Yonsei University, Korea. 4Department of Public Health, Graduate School, Yonsei University, Korea. 5Health Insurance Review & Assessment Services, Korea. 6Department of Orthopedics, College of Medicine, Yonsei University, Korea. |
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ABSTRACT |
OBJECTIVES: To estimate the economic burden of osteoporotic vertebral fracture (VF) from a societal perspective. METHODS: From 2002 to 2004, we identified all National Health Insurance claims records for women > or = 50 years old with a diagnosis of VF. The first 6-months was defined as a "clearance period," Ysuch that patients were considered as incident cases if their first claim of fracture was recorded after June 30, 2002. We only included patients with > or = one claim of a diagnosis of, or prescription for, osteoporosis over 3 years. For each patient, we cumulated the claims amount for the first visit and for the follow-up treatments for 1 year. The hospital charge data from 4 hospitals were investigated to measure the proportion of the non-covered services. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 106 patients from the 4 study sites to measure the out-of-pocket spending outside of hospitals. RESULTS: During 2.5 years, 131,453 VF patients were identified. The patients had an average of 3.38 visits, 0.40 admissions and 6.36 inpatient days. The per capita cost was 1,909,690 Won: 71.5% for direct medical costs, 20.6% for direct non-medical costs and 7.9% for indirect costs. The per capita cost increased with increasing age: 1,848,078 Won for those aged 50-64, 2,084,846 Won for 65-74, 2,129,530 Won for 75-84and 2,121,492 Won for those above 84. CONCLUSIONS: Exploring the economic burden of osteoporotic VF is expected to motivate to adopt effective treatment options for osteoporosis in order to prevent the incidence of fracture and the consequent costs. |
Key words:
Cost of disease; Insurance claim; Osteoporosis; Vertebral fracture |
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