Cost of treatment for head and neck cancer in India

[Health Systems Research India Initiative]

Cost of treatment for head and neck cancer in India

Akashdeep Singh Chauhan et al

PLOS ONE,2018

Abstract

There are no published data on the cost of cancer treatment for guiding reimbursement decisions in India. The present study was designed to estimate the cost of treating head and neck cancer (HNC) with the aim of determining package rates. The present study was undertaken in the Departments of Radiotherapy and Otolaryngology of a large tertiary care hospital in North India. Economic health system costs incurred were assessed using a bottom-up methodology. Data on all resources–capital or recurrent, incurred on the delivery of HNC treatment were collected from April 2014 to March 2015. Following the cost-of-illness approach, patients were interviewed to elicit out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditure. A total of INR 40,993,017 (USD 0.67 million) was spent on radiotherapy care for treating HNC during 1 year. Salaries constituted the major component (42.6%) of this cost, followed by equipment/furniture (29%), space rent (20.7%), overheads and consumables (7.7%). In addition, INR 47,191 (USD 773) per HNC patient was spent on the surgery. Furthermore, patients spent an average amount ranging from INR 12,575 (USD 206) to INR 65,257 (USD 1069) on the different treatment therapies. In terms of package rates, cobalt radiotherapy alone was the cheapest (INR 38,714, USD 634), while intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) was most expensive (INR 192,914, USD 3161). The estimates from the present study could be used for developing package rates under various publicly financed health insurance schemes as well as for the planning for creation of new cancer centres.

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Team HSRII

[Dr.S.K.Mishra]

Dear All

Greetings from AIHMS-Global, New Delhi.

Our stillbirth commentary has been published online in BJOG yesterday:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1471-0528.15113/full

It will be open access for the next 7 days (offered by BJOG as part of the 2-year anniversary of the Lancet Ending Preventable Stillbirths Series)

Please also see attached the social media toolkit for the 2-year anniversary of the Lancet Ending Preventable Stillbirths Series media push yesterday.

With thanks & regards,

>SKMishra 

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Prof (Dr) Surendra Kumar Mishra, New Delhi, India
Call: +91-11-41741280, Cell: +91- 9831087621 / 9818201280

Director, AIHMS-Global, New Delhi, India

Website: www.aihms.org / www.aihms.ne

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