Healthcare costs for Crohn’s disease patients treated with infliximab: a propensity weighted comparison of the effects of treatment adherence

Autor: Terra Slaton, Brian G. Feagan, William H. Olson, George J. Wan, Chris M. Kozma
Rok vydání: 2014
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Medical Economics. 17:872-880
ISSN: 1941-837X
1369-6998
DOI: 10.3111/13696998.2014.950669
Popis: The objective for the research was to evaluate the direct healthcare costs for Crohn's disease (CD) patients categorized by adherence status.Adult patients with ≥1 claim for infliximab and ≥2 claims for CD who were continuously insured for 12 months before and after their first infliximab infusion (index date) were identified in a 2006-2009 US managed care database. Patients were excluded if they had rheumatoid arthritis claims, received infliximab billed as a pharmacy benefit, or received another biologic drug. Patients were categorized as being either adherent or intermittently adherent to infliximab using a pre-defined algorithm. Total and component direct costs, CD-related costs, rates of surgery, and days of hospitalization were estimated for the 360-day post-index period. Propensity weighted generalized linear models were used to adjust the cost estimates for potential confounding variables.The total propensity weighted cost for infliximab adherent patients was $40,425 (95% CI = [$38,686, $42,242]), compared to $41,082 (95% CI = [$38,163, $44,223]) for the intermittently adherent (p = 0.71). However, adherent patients had lower total direct medical costs, exclusive of infliximab, that were $13,097 (95% CI = [$12,141, $14,127]) compared with $20,068 (95% CI = [$17,676, $22,784]) for intermittently adherent patients as a result of substantially lower hospital and outpatient costs (p 0.0001).Greater drug-related costs for infliximab adherent patients were offset by lower costs from hospitalization and outpatient visits. These findings indicate that adherent patients have improved clinical outcomes, at a similar aggregate cost, than patients who are only intermittently adherent to therapy.
Databáze: OpenAIRE