A METHOD FOR ESTIMATING BASE-LINE HEALTH-CARE COSTS

Study objectives - Studies estimating the cost of specific illnesses d o not generally take into account the fact that health care costs woul d have been incurred in the absence of the disease of interest. The go al of this study was to develop a method of estimating age specific ba seline health care costs. These costs were calculated for Australian m en, and their magnitude was compared with the costs of caring for men with HN infection. Design - Information about health service usage was obtained fi om the 1989-90 national health survey and linked with dat a on the costs of services to obtain average monthly costs for individ ual and total health services. Setting - The Australian community. Par ticipants - A total of 18 160 men aged 20 years and over. Results - Av erage total health service costs per man per month were $103 (Australi an). Hospital admissions comprised approximately 40% of these costs an d casualty/outpatient visits, consultations with a doctor, and prescri bed medication comprised 10%, 13%, and 12%, respectively. Costs increa sed with age, from around $60 per month for men aged 20-39 years to $2 13 per month for men aged 60 and over. Conclusion - Baseline costs com prised around 18% of health care costs for men with asymptomatic HIV i nfection, but less than 1% of costs for men with AIDS. These estimates provide an essential baseline for determining the costs attributable to specific diseases.