Health Care Cost for Multiple Sclerosis: The Case of a Health Insurer in Colombia

Abstract

Background: There have been many studies on the cost of multiple sclerosis in countries with high prevalence, whereas in Latin America such analyses are few. Taking into consideration the burden of this disease and the high financial impact of treatment on the health care system, it is necessary to know the behavior of cost of illness. Objectives: To describe the direct costs associated with health care in patients with multiple sclerosis affiliated with a health insurer in Colombia. Methods: An analysis of direct costs of disease was performed from the perspective of the third-party payer. A direct measurement from the technical costing "top-down" approach was used. Data were adjusted for inflation and expressed in 2014 US dollars. Results: The average annual cost per patient for the country

Economic Burden of Multiple Sclerosis in Low- and Middle‐Income Countries: A Systematic Review

“…Table 1 summarizes the characteristics of included studies. They were conducted in ten countries: six in Latin America (Argentina [ 43 ], Colombia [ 50 ], Mexico [ 53 ], and three studies in Brazil [ 44 , 48 , 49 ]), seven in Asia (Turkey [ 45 ], Thailand [ 54 ], Jordan [ 51 ], two studies in Iran [ 46 , 55 ], and two studies in China [ 52 , 56 ]), and one in Russia [ 47 ]. All included studies were published between 2013 and July 2020 and reported on data collected between 2000 and 2018.…”

“…Resources used were annualized Chanatittarat et al [ 54 ], Thailand Pts with MS recruited from three MS clinics ( N = 185; response rate: NR) Female: 77% Mean age: 43.0 years MS (ICD-10; G35) 0–2.5: NR 3–5.5: NR 6–7.5: NR 8–9.5: NR Enrollment: March 2011 to September 2014. Resources used were annualized Top-down studies Maia Diniz et al [ 49 ], Brazil Pts with MS from the patient-centered registry ( N = 23,082) Female: 73.3% Mean age: 36.8 years MS (ICD-10; G35) NA 16 years between 2000 and 2015 Muñoz-Galindo et al [ 50 ], Colombia Pts with MS: members of the main insurers of the contributory system in Colombia ( N = 178) Female: 65% Mean age: 43.4 years MS (ICD-10; G35) NA 5 years between 2010 and 2014 Macias-Islas et al [ 53 ], Mexico Pts with RRMS pertaining to the Mexican Social Security Institute ( N = 492) Female: 67% Mean age: NR RRMS according to revised 2005 McDonald criteria NA 2 years between 2009 and 2011 McKenzie et al [ 51 ], Jordan Pts with MS among Syrian and Iraqi refugees seeking emergency medical care from the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees ( N = 7) Female: 57% Mean age: NR ICD-10 codes NA 2 years between 2012 and 2013 Min et al [ 52 ], China Pts with MS from the national insurance database ( N = 775) NR ICD code NA 3 years between 2014 and 2016 …”

“…Five of the TD studies reported prevalence-based COI estimates and were retrospective; Macías-Islas et al [ 53 ] was the exception. Three TD studies [ 49 , 50 , 53 ] used multiple perspectives, two studies [ 51 , 52 ] did not report the perspective of the analysis, and the perspective used by Du et al [ 56 ] was unclear. TD studies used different cost measurement tools, i.e., patient records, clinical records, claims, and/or health insurance coverage.…”

Availability of secondary healthcare data for conducting pharmacoepidemiology studies in Colombia: A systematic review

“…Among these, 351 articles were excluded after title screening and the abstract of the 784 remaining papers was assessed. Finally, 461 publications were excluded following the eligibility criteria and thus, 323 articles that had interpretable data and fulfilled the eligibility criteria were used for data extraction…”

“…Regarding health insurance companies, a total of 27 articles reported the use of claims data as the source of data 26,27,33,44,46‐48,53,55,58,78,116,140,149,175,205,226,227,231,258,270,281,284,288,289,324,325 . In most of the articles (75%), the specific health insurance company was not identifiable.…”