Analyzing the Direct Costs of Patients Waiting for Receiving Pacemakers (A Case Study: Shahid Madani Educational Center, Tabriz)

A major part of health care costs is dedicated to the costs of treating patients with cardiovascular disease constitute so that investigating the costs of these patinets is imporatnt. To this end, the dircet costs of hospitalized patients waiting for receiving pacemaker in Shahid Madani Hospital in Tabriz has been analyzed from the view of hospital in this study.  

This is a descriptive cross-sectional study. The statistical population included 135 patients receiving a permanent pacemaker. The average cost per patient, cost of each day of admission to ordinary sectors, the CCU and the ICU, cost saving in case of reciving a pacemaker timely regarding the patient’s share of the insurance, the percentage of out-of-pocket payment and the cost of lost productivity were calculated for additional hospitalization days.

The results show that the total cost of pacemaker insertion on the waiting list is almost 2 billion Rilas, the average cost per patient is about 20 million Rials and the average cost of per day hospitalization is approximately 3 million Rials. During the hospitalization days, the average cost of per patient and the average cost of per day hospitalization in the CCU are respectively 29 million Rials and 4 million Rilas. Also, the average cost of per patient and the average cost of per day hospitalization in the ICU are respectively 92 million Rials and 6 million Rials. The lost productivity cost for ecah patient is nearly two million rials.

Increasing the patinets waiting days would result in boosting the costs of hospital and the insurer organizations. Therefore, healthcare costs can be cost-effcetive by adopting proper strategies to decrease the number of waiting days for patients (for example, pririotizing patients based on scientific principles in terms of financial and economic funds and following an appropraite clinical instrcution) and health insurance can function more effectively in allocating funds.