EE117 How expensive is arterial hypertension in a colombian insurance company?

Objectives: To describe the annual direct medical costs and the use of health services of patients with arterial hypertension (HT) in the Caribbean region of Colombia, 2018-2021. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study of HT adult patients describing the use of health resources and the direct medical costs between 2018- 2021. Patients were affiliated to Mutual SER EPS, a health insurer in Colombia with more than 2.5 million affiliates. We calculated absolute frequencies and percentage of HT patients who used services related to HT. Direct medical costs were expressed as annual averages with their 95% confidence intervals. All costs were expressed in American Dollars using an average rate of 3,981.16 COP for 12/31/2021. Results: We analyzed 11,849 patients with HT, 66% female and 97.1% belong to the subsidize regimen of health (poor population). The average of age and body mass index was 61.6 years old (DS 15.2) and 25.8 (SD 5.1), respectively. The annual average direct medical cost of a HT patient was US$82.5 (95%CI 52.4-112.6). The largest share of this cost was for hospitalization (73.5%%), followed by surgical procedures (10.6%). 82.2% (n=9,737) used drugs with annual average costs of US$118.3 (95%CI 58.4-178.1) and 75.1% of patients used specialized consultation, with average costs of US$20.2 (95%CI 19.7-20.7). The annual mean cost of external consultation was $24.3 (CI95% $23.6- $25.0); this service was used by 6,724 patients (56.7%). 183 patients used general hospitalization (mean cost for patient of $942.2; 95%CI 885.6-998.9), 44 used intermediate ICU (mean cost of $2,458; CI95%2,295-2,620) and 15 used ICU (mean cost of $3,733; 95%CI 3,349-$4,117). Conclusions: The three services of hospitalization for patients with HT, consume 73 out of every 100 USD available for care. Developing strategies to prevent intermediate and hard outcomes will reduce the costs of care for people with HT

• Autores: Salcedo Mejía, F.; Alvis Zakzuk, N.J.; Alvis Zakzuk, N.R.; Moyano, L.; Fernandez Mercado, J.C.; Jerez Arias, M.; Paz Wilches, J.; Zakzuk Sierra, J.
• Tipo de recurso: Article of investigation
• Fecha de publicación: 2024
• Institución: Corporación Universidad de la Costa
• Repositorio: REDICUC - Repositorio CUC
• Idioma: eng
• OAI Identifier: oai:repositorio.cuc.edu.co:11323/13923
• Acceso en línea: https://hdl.handle.net/11323/13923; https://repositorio.cuc.edu.co/
• Palabra clave: Hypertension; Colombian; Insurance company
• Rights: openAccess
• License: Atribución 4.0 Internacional (CC BY 4.0)