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Utility of the Suficiencia database in Colombia: an application to healthcare costs of rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus

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Abstract

Objectives

Suficiencia is a large database that encompasses information of 15.1 million enrollees at ten health maintenance organizations (HMOs) on each healthcare service provided to patients, being the main source of information for estimating cost at the individual level. It constitutes a reliable tool for measuring prevalence and costs of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in Colombia, where these data are scarce. The aim of this study is to describe and show the utility of the Suficiencia database for studies on RA and SLE in Colombia.

Methods

To estimate the RA and SLE cost, patients were identified according to ICD-10 codes in the Suficiencia dataset for year 2015. We calculated the number of RA/SLE patients and their individual cost as the sum of all claims in each type of facility (i.e., inpatient, outpatient, emergency, domiciliary). We then estimated the total cost of care and average cost per patient. We also report RA and SLE prevalence.

Results

The estimates of prevalence of RA and SLE were 737/100,000 and 117/100,000 respectively. Results show that the annual average healthcare cost of a person with RA is $1625, while the cost for a person with SLE is $1693. Women were more affected by these conditions, but men's care was more expensive.

Conclusion

The cost of RA and SLE care in the developing world may be relatively high. Total cost represents about 4% of total healthcare expenses in Colombia.

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Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Subdirector de Investigación, Centro de Investigaciones Clínicas, Fundación Valle del Lili, Carrera 98 18-49, Cali, Colombia

    Sergio I. Prada

  2. Centro PROESA, Universidad Icesi, Cali, Colombia

    Sergio I. Prada & William R. García

  3. Centro de Investigaciones Clínicas (CIC), Fundación Valle del Lili, Cali, Colombia

    Ivana Nieto-Aristizábal

  4. Grupo de Investigación en Reumatología, Autoinmunidad y Medicina Traslacional (GIRAT), Universidad Icesi, Fundación Valle del Lili, Cali, Colombia

    Ivana Nieto-Aristizábal & Gabriel J. Tobón

Authors
  1. Sergio I. Prada
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  2. William R. García
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  3. Ivana Nieto-Aristizábal
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  4. Gabriel J. Tobón
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sergio I. Prada.

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The authors declare no financial support or other benefits from commercial sources for the work reported in the manuscript. The authors declare no other financial interests that could create a potential conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest with regard to the work.

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Key messages

1. We describe a unique dataset.

2. We report RA and SLE prevalence.

3. We estimate average cost and the total health system costs attributable to RA/SLE patients.

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Prada, S.I., García, W.R., Nieto-Aristizábal, I. et al. Utility of the Suficiencia database in Colombia: an application to healthcare costs of rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus. J Public Health (Berl.) 30, 525–530 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-020-01314-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-020-01314-y

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