An Estimation of Direct and Indirect Costs for Elderly Patients in Tehran, 2015

Elderly population constitute a significant share of demand for health services and thus the cost of services provided to this population is important from health economic perspective. Therefore, this study aimed to estimate the medical and non-medical direct and indirect costs among elderly population who referred to selected hospitals of Iran University of Medical Sciences.
This cross-sectional study was conducted on 400 elderly patients admitted to Firouzgar and Rasoul Akram hospitals in 2015. Medical and non-medical direct and indirect costs were collected using a checklist and the data were analyzed with an SPSS statistical software.
In this study, the mean cost of elderly patients was 3,801,081 Rials for one month. Direct medical costs had the highest share and the indirect costs had the lowest share of the total cost for elderly patients (2,992,276 and 217,088 Rials, respectively).
Discussion and Although direct medical costs had the highest financial burden on older patients, the non-medical direct and indirect costs also constituted more than 20% of the total cost for elderly patients. Therefore, all components of costs should be considered in the planning and policy-making in the health system.