The reduction of health care costs associated with alcoholism treatment: a 14-year longitudinal study.
This study utilized two separate research designs to examine whether the initiation of alcoholism treatment is associated with a change in overall medical care cost in a population of alcoholics enrolled under a health plan sponsored by a large midwestern manufacturing corporation. In the longest longitudinal study of alcoholism treatment costs to date, a review of claims filed from 1974 to 1987 identified 3,729 alcoholics (3,068 of whom received treatment and 661 of whom did not). In one design, a time-series analysis found that following treatment initiation the total health care costs of treated alcoholics--including the cost of alcoholism treatment--declined by 23% to 55% from their highest pretreatment levels. Costs for identified but untreated alcoholics rose following identification. In a second design, analysis of variance was used to control for group differences including pretreatment health status and age. This analysis indicated that the posttreatment costs of treated alcoholics were 24% lower than comparable costs for untreated alcoholics. The study provides considerable evidence that alcoholism treatment can reduce overall medical costs in a heterogeneous alcoholic population (white collar/blue collar; fee-for-service/HMO).
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Prevention Research Center, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, Berkeley, California 94704.
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D000437:Alcoholism / Q000191:economics / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003363:Cost Control / Q000639:trends; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006264:Health Benefit Plans, Employee / Q000191:economics; D017048:Health Care Costs / Q000639:trends*; D006279:Health Maintenance Organizations / Q000191:economics; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D009042:Motivation; D010349:Patient Compliance / Q000523:psychology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D015983:Selection Bias