Economic Evaluation of Full Coverage Policy for Essential Hypertension Medicines in Taizhou City / 中国药房

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE： To investigate the effects of full coverage policy for essential hypertension medicines on economic burden of hypertensive patients in Taizhou of Zhejiang Province， and to further provide reference for the practice and promotion of the policy for essential medicines. METHODS： By querying electronic health records database of hypertension patients and statistics of health bureaus in different districts and counties of Taizhou city， the data of electronic health records of hypertension patients were extracted 1 year before and during 3 years after the implementation of full coverage policy for essential medicines in all districts and counties. The patients who had consistently taken free medicines were included in the policy group； the patients who had never taken free medicines were included in the control group. The policy group and control group were matched 1 ∶ 1 by propensity score matching method. Per capita drug cost and per capita hospitalization cost of patients before and after the implementation of full coverage policy for essential medicines were calculated. The input-output ratios of the policy were calculated. RESULTS： During the 3 years after the implementation of the policy， each patient saved 91.3， 272.0 and 464.1 yuan respectively. The hospitalization cost for each patient increased by 65.6 and 46.2 yuan in the first and second year， and decreased by 352.8 yuan in the third year， respectively. A three-year per capita input of policy was 50.0， 147.2 and 278.5 yuan， with input-output ratio of 0.51， 1.28 and 2.25. CONCLUSIONS： The full coverage policy for essential hypertension medicines in Taizhou city demonstrates economic efficiency to some extent， but researches about the impact of policy on disease treatment needed to be conducted. It is necessary for the government departments to invest continuously for a long time and improve the supporting measures so as to make the policy more profitable.