Emergent Challenges in Determining Costs for Economic Evaluations
Josephine C. Jacobs () and
Paul G. Barnett
Additional contact information
Josephine C. Jacobs: VA Health Economics Resource Center
Paul G. Barnett: VA Health Economics Resource Center
PharmacoEconomics, 2017, vol. 35, issue 2, No 1, 129-139
Abstract:
Abstract This paper describes methods of determining costs for economic evaluations of healthcare and considers how cost determination is being affected by recent developments in healthcare. The literature was reviewed to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the four principal methods of cost determination: micro-costing, activity-based costing, charge-based costing, and gross costing. A scoping review was conducted to identify key trends in healthcare delivery and to identify costing issues associated with these changes. Existing guidelines provide information on how to implement various costing methods. Bottom-up costing is needed when accuracy is paramount, but top-down approaches are often the only feasible approach. We describe six healthcare trends that have important implications for costing methodology: (1) reform in payment mechanisms; (2) care delivery in less restrictive settings; (3) the growth of telehealth interventions; (4) the proliferation of new technology; (5) patient privacy concerns; and (6) growing efforts to implement guidelines. Some costs are difficult to measure and have been overlooked. These include physician services for inpatients, facility costs for outpatient services, the cost of developing treatment innovations, patient and caregiver costs, and the indirect costs of organizational interventions. Standardized methods are needed to determine social welfare and productivity costs. In the future, cost determination will be facilitated by technological advances but hindered by the shift to capitated payment, to the provision of care in less restrictive settings, and by heightened concern for medical record privacy.
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)
Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40273-016-0465-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:pharme:v:35:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s40273-016-0465-1
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/40273
DOI: 10.1007/s40273-016-0465-1
Access Statistics for this article
PharmacoEconomics is currently edited by Timothy Wrightson and Christopher I. Carswell
More articles in PharmacoEconomics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().