Direct cost of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus healthcare and its complications in Lithuania

Objective: The main objective of this study was to estimate the annual direct healthcare cost of type 2 diabetes mellitus healthcare and its complications in Lithuanian population.
Material and methods: The study uses a prevalence-based top-down approach. The random sample of study participants was formed using the database of the National Health Insurance Fund under the Lithuanian Ministry of Health. 762 patients with diabetes mellitus type 2 data were analyzed in this research. The data on healthcare costs was recorded between January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2011.
Results: Ambulatory care cost mean per patients with diabetes mellitus type 2 in 2011 was EUR 156.14 (95% CI, 147.05–165.24). 34.4% patients had at least one hospitalization during the 2011 year. Mean annual cost per patients of hospitalization was EUR 1160.16 (95% CI, 1019.60–1300.73). Covered drugs and diabetes supplies annual direct cost mean per patients was EUR 448.34 (95% CI, 411.14–485.54). The more expensive treatment was with oral and non-insulin injectable hypoglycemic medications (P < 0.001). 65.1% participants were diagnosed one or more diabetes-related chronic complications. Average annual cost per person, increased gradually with the numbers of complications from EUR 671.94 (95% CI, 575.03–768.86) in patients without complications to EUR 1588.98 (95% CI, 1052.09–2125.86) in patients with 3 and more complications (P < 0.001).
Conclusions: The largest part of direct costs in diabetes mellitus healthcare composes hospital inpatient care and covered drugs expenditures. In our study we observed that the presence of microvascular, macrovascular chronic complication increased the direct cost per patient, compared with patients without complications.