The costs of heart failure treatment and the influence of risk factors

Objective. The objective of this study was to analyze costs of treatment of patients with heart failure and the influence of risk factors on cost patterns. Methods. The study included a random sample of 30 adults with heart failure (30 to 90 years) in Primary Health Care Department in Svijanac, Serbia, for the period of 2010. All ambulatory, hospital and drug costs were recorded and analyzed for each patient by using individual patient records as the source of data. Results. Treatment costs, annually, per patient, in Serbian dinars (RSD) were: for hospital services 24,036.82 (9,592.83 to 212,718.97), for drug treatment 13,709.06 (3,251.40 to 68,740.20), for ambulatory services 8,929.68 (2,056.24 to 19,968.93) while the total costs were 46,675.06 (11,565.89 to 244,612.89). The costs for patients with risk factors were, on average, higher by 26.12%. The greatest difference in total costs was observed in patients who consumed alcohol (110,056.55) compared to patients who did not use it (5,1767.38), while in patients with elevated body mass index costs were lower (61,523.16) than in patients with normal values of this parameter (62,298.38). Conclusions. Hospital costs represented the majority of treatment costs of patients with heart failure. Costs of treating heart failure in patients with risk factors (smoking, obesity, alcoholism, diabetes, and hypertension) were 1.76 times higher.