Estimating the Incidence-Based Cost of Illness Due to Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Using One-Year Insurance Claim Data in Korea

Objectives: Long-term follow-up data are required for incidence-based cost-of-illness (COI) studies, and it is difficult to carry out such assessments. To overcome this limitation, we estimated the acute and maintenance-state costs of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) using 1-year claim data.

Methods: Using Korean National Health Insurance (NHI) data from 2016, 2017, and 2018, we identified patients receiving HSCT based on the procedure code "X5*" (i.e., HSCT). The post-HSCT group was defined as patients without the "X5*" code, but with the code "Z948 (other transplanted conditions)" and indications of HSCT (referring to those who had received HSCT). Mean annual medical use and costs were computed using the monthly values available for each patient.

Results: The mean number of hospitalizations/year, outpatient visits per year, hospitalization days/year, and length of stay (LOS)/hospitalization were 8.14, 35.80, 97.16, and 14.72, respectively, for allogeneic HSCT patients (n = 56); 8.08, 33.58, 73.04, and 10.63, respectively, for autologous HSCT patients (n = 89); 2.93, 29.40, 50.95, and 20.84, respectively, for post-allogeneic HSCT patients (n = 40); and 1.72, 16.38, 30.11, and 19.29, respectively, for post-autologous HSCT patients (n = 252). The estimated annual NHI-covered medical costs (US dollars) were $38,833-$40,876 for the allogeneic HSCT group, $1749-$6744 for the post-allogeneic HSCT group, $21,231-$22,863 for the autologous HSCT group, and $3954-$5352 for the post-autologous HSCT group.

Conclusions: This study describes an alternative method for conducting incidence-based COI studies using cross-sectional claims data.