Self-monitoring induced savings on type 2 diabetes patients’ travel and healthcare costs

Abstract

Travel costs related to HbA1c screening of T2DM patients constitute a substantial cost item, the consideration of which in healthcare planning would enable the societal cost-efficiency of T2DM care to be improved. Even more savings in both travel costs and healthcare costs of T2DM can be achieved by utilizing more self-monitoring and electronic feedback practices. Additionally, the cost model composed in the study can be developed and expanded further to address other healthcare processes and patient groups.

Modeling patients’ time, travel, and monitoring costs in anticoagulation management: societal savings achievable with the shift from warfarin to direct oral anticoagulants

“…These costs can be expressed with equations for every travel mode, similarly to the previous studies of Ford et al [20] and Leminen et al [17]. Walking ( C WALK ), private car ( C CAR ), bus ( C BUS ) and taxi ( C TAXI ) are expressed with the following equations: where T is the travel time, VOT (value of time) is the gross wage coefficient of the patient’s zip code area, P is the patient’s productivity coefficient (used as weight for VOT to depict patient’s lost contribution to the society based on lost working time and leisure), T p is the vehicle parking time, D is the road distance in km, VOC is the vehicle operating cost per km, T a is the access time to the network (walking time to a bus stop or from a bus stop to the clinic or laboratory, waiting time at the bus stop, or service time in a taxi), and F is the bus fare or the fixed charge of taxi paid for the journey.…”

“…We measured both the patients’ costs of travel and time loss and direct anticoagulation management costs using a georeferenced cost model, which is an application of the previous model for the travel and time costs of type 2 diabetes by Leminen et al [17]. The model was developed further in order to measure the societal costs of anticoagulation management performed with either warfarin or DOACs.…”

“…Traveling needed to reach health services incurs costs to both patients and society; but all additional costs, including travel costs and the value of lost leisure time and production loss, are often ignored in economic evaluations, which tend to focus on the direct monetary costs of care [10, 11]. Nevertheless, it has been shown that patient time and travel costs associated with receiving healthcare services may be critical, and they should be included in the economic assessments of interventions that require regular monitoring and traveling [10, 17–19]. Considering the total cost of an intervention, patient time and travel costs have been reported to be 21% in type 2 diabetes follow-up in Finland [17] and 20–40% in cancer screening in the UK [18].…”

“…Nevertheless, it has been shown that patient time and travel costs associated with receiving healthcare services may be critical, and they should be included in the economic assessments of interventions that require regular monitoring and traveling [10, 17–19]. Considering the total cost of an intervention, patient time and travel costs have been reported to be 21% in type 2 diabetes follow-up in Finland [17] and 20–40% in cancer screening in the UK [18].…”

Influencing Factors of Transportation Costs regarding Healthcare Service Utilization in Korea

“…Conversely, several studies in the United States of America and Europe have investigated transportation cost burden in patients who are required to visit healthcare services regularly owing to medical conditions—such as type 2 diabetes, end-stage renal disease, rheumatoid arthritis, or various types of cancers (i.e., colorectal, cervical, and breast cancer). 18 19 20 21 22 23 However, the abovementioned past literature from other countries on the size of transportation cost burden regarding healthcare utilization generally focused on a single disease or specific treatment groups. Regarding this gap, a past study highlighted that studies on the cost of disease could benefit from a methodological approach that allows for measuring the overall economic burden in different disease groups, as this may help to enable the distribution of restricted healthcare resources.…”