Economic burden of long-term care of rheumatoid arthritis patients in Hungary.
OBJECTIVE
Long-term care (LTC) in Hungary is provided in four major ways: day care, nursing, chronic care, and rehabilitation. The aim of this study was to explore the financing of LTC in Hungary, with a disease-specific focus on rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients.


METHODS
Data were derived from the National Health Insurance Fund Administration (NHIFA). For 2012, we analyzed the following indicators: number of patients and cases, crude and weighted hospital days, and health insurance expenditure.


RESULTS
The annual health insurance expenditure of LTC was 112.6 million EUR in Hungary in 2012 and covered 209,000 patients (225,000 cases). The NHIFA spent 0.69 million EUR for the LTC of 976 patients with RA. The annual health insurance cost per patient was significantly (by 32%) higher for patients with RA (710 EUR) than the average cost of all patients (538 EUR). The average length of stay was also higher for patients with RA (19.7 days) than for the general LTC population (17.4 days).


CONCLUSIONS
The cost of LTC of patients with RA is higher than the average cost of the general LTC patient population. Early treatment of RA patients could contribute to decreasing LTC expenditure. More generally, health technology assessment can inform future LTC funding debates in Central and Eastern European countries by putting more emphasis on LTC utilization and costs.
Institute for Health Insurance, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pécs, Mária u. 5-7, 7621, Pécs, Hungary.
Cs Zoltán
CZ
Horváth
Andor
A
Sebestyén
August
A
Österle
Dóra
D
Endrei
József
J
Betlehem
András
A
Oláh
László
L
Imre
Gabriella
G
Bagosi
Imre
I
Boncz
D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000191:economics*; D017281:Cost of Illness; D016208:Databases, Factual; D017048:Health Care Costs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D006814:Hungary; D008134:Long-Term Care / Q000191:economics*