The Costs of Postoperative Pain Management in South Korea

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: There have been few studies carried out on the costs of after-surgery pain therapy in hospitals. This analysis was conducted to estimate the health care costs and to understand aspects of resource utilization for post-operative pain management in South Korea. METHODS: The direct health care costs for postoperative pain management were estimated by the type of analgesia and surgery. The claims database of the Health Insurance Review Agency (HIRA) was the main data source for this study. It covered all the reimbursement claims from medical care institutions. The average resource use included the length of stay, the total hospitalization cost, the total analgesia cost and the total pharmacy cost. The total analgesia cost was measured as the mean of all the analgesia subgroups, and this encompassed the procedure costs and drug costs. RESULTS: The average length of stay was 12.0 days per case and the total analgesia cost for surgery averaged 131,555 won (equivalent to US$146.2), which was 4.2% of the total hospitalization cost. The total pharmacy cost on the average was 626,805 won (US$696.5), which was 20.0% of the total hospitalization cost. This study shows that the costs of epidural patient-controlled analgesia were the highest among the 11 analgesia types, with 49.5% of its costs being the material cost. CONCLUSION: This study provides a variety of information about how the costs and patterns of health resources that are used for post-operative pain management are structured in South Korea. It is the first cost analysis using the database for the entire Korean population. Understanding the patterns of resource use correctly may be an important first step in designing efficient pain therapy for patients.