Comparison of COVID-19 hospitalization costs across care pathways: a patient-level time-driven activity-based costing analysis in a Brazilian hospital.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic raised awareness of the need to better understand where and how patient-level costs are incurred in health care organizations, as health managers and other decision-makers need to plan and quickly adapt to the increasing demand for health care services to meet patients' care needs. Time-driven activity-based costing offers a better understanding of the drivers of cost throughout the care pathway, providing information that can guide decisions on process improvement and resource optimization. This study aims to estimate COVID-19 patient-level hospital costs and to evaluate cost variability considering the in-hospital care pathways of COVID-19 management and the patient clinical classification. METHODS: This is a prospective cohort study that applied time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) in a Brazilian reference center for COVID-19. Patients hospitalized during the first wave of the disease were selected for their data to be analyzed to estimate in-hospital costs. The cost information was calculated at the patient level and stratified by hospital care pathway and Ordinal Scale for Clinical Improvement (OSCI) category. Multivariable analyses were applied to identify predictors of cost variability in the care pathways that were evaluated. RESULTS: A total of 208 patients were included in the study. Patients followed five different care pathways, of which Emergency + Ward was the most followed (n = 118, 57%). Pathways which included the intensive care unit presented a statistically significant influence on costs per patient (p <  0.001) when compared to Emergency + Ward. The median cost per patient was I$2879 (IQR 1215; 8140) and mean cost per patient was I$6818 (SD 9043). The most expensive care pathway was the ICU only, registering a median cost per patient of I$13,519 (IQR 5637; 23,373) and mean cost per patient of I$17,709 (SD 16,020). All care pathways that included the ICU unit registered a higher cost per patient. CONCLUSIONS: This is one of the first microcosting study for COVID-19 that applied the TDABC methodology and demonstrated how patient-level costs vary as a function of the care pathways followed by patients. These findings can be used to develop value reimbursement strategies that will inform sustainable health policies in middle-income countries such as Brazil.

Billing And Insurance-Related Administrative Costs: A Cross-National Analysis.

Billing and insurance-related costs are a significant source of wasteful health care spending in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations, but these administrative burdens vary across national systems. We executed a microlevel accounting of these costs in different national settings at six provider locations in five nations (Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and Singapore) that supplements our prior study measuring the costs in the US. We found that billing and insurance-related costs for inpatient bills range from a low of $6 in Canada to a high of $215 in the US for an inpatient surgical bill (purchasing power parity adjusted). We created a taxonomy of billing and insurance-related activities (eligibility, coding, submission, and rework) that was applied to data from the six sites and allows cross-national comparisons. Higher costs in the US and Australia are attributed to high coding costs. Much of the savings achieved in some nations is attributable to assigning tasks to people in lower-skill job categories, although most of the savings are due to more efficient billing and insurance-related processes. Some nations also reduce these costs by offering financial counseling to patients before treatment. Our microlevel approach can identify specific cost drivers and reveal national billing features that reduce coding costs. It illustrates a valuable pathway for future research in understanding and mitigating administrative costs in health care.