Costs of hospital care for hypertension in an insured population without an outpatient medicines benefit: an observational study in the Philippines.
BACKGROUND
Hypertension is the number one attributable risk factor for death throughout the world and a major contributor to morbidity, mortality, and increasing health care expenditures in the Philippines. Lack of access to outpatient antihypertensive medicines leads to avoidable disease progression and costly inpatient admissions. We estimated the cost to the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), which generally does not cover outpatient medicines, for inpatient care for hypertension and its sequelae.


METHODS
Using PhilHealth inpatient claims for discharges between July 1, 2002 and December 31, 2005, we describe costs to PhilHealth for hospitalizations classified by primary discharge diagnoses into hospitalizations for hypertension; hypertensive heart and/or renal disease; other definite; and other possible consequences of untreated hypertension and assess disease trajectory for patients with more than one admission.


RESULTS
PhilHealth reimbursed US $56 million for 444,628 hospitalizations for hypertension-related diagnoses incurred by 360,016 patients during 3.5 years; 42% of admissions were for essential or secondary hypertension; 19% for hypertensive heart or renal disease; and 39% for other consequences of untreated hypertension. Among 60,659 patients admitted during the first 18 months of the study with a diagnosis of essential or secondary hypertension, 9% were hospitalized again for treatment of sequelae; older individuals (vs. = or < 40 years old), men, dependents (vs. members), and those who were employed (vs. in the private membership category) were more likely to be hospitalized again; as were those whose first admission during the study period was for consequences of hypertension (vs. essential or secondary hypertension).


CONCLUSIONS
Inpatient care for hypertension and its sequelae is expensive. Since many hospitalizations may be avoided with antihypertensive pharmacologic therapy, an outpatient medicines benefit may be one cost-effective policy option for PhilHealth.
Wagner
Anita K
AK
Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Boston, MA, USA. awagner@hms.harvard.edu
Valera
Madeleine
M
Graves
Amy J
AJ
Laviña
Sheila
S
Ross-Degnan
Dennis
D
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000959:Antihypertensive Agents / Q000191:economics / Q000627:therapeutic use; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D017721:Hospital Costs; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000191:economics*; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007345:Insurance Claim Review; D019458:Insurance Coverage / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D038801:International Classification of Diseases; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019370:Observation; D010679:Philippines
D000959:Antihypertensive Agents