Table 2.
Amount and Value of Patient Time Spent on Anticoagulation Care
| Anticoagulation Clinic Visits | Mean Time (Median) | $ Mean (Median) Valuea | |
|---|---|---|---|
| One visit | Travel to the clinic | 46.6 minutes | |
| Time in clinic (including waiting) | 56.5 minutes (50) | ||
| Travel back home | 43.7 minutes | ||
| Total for travel and time in clinic | 147 minutes (123) | ||
| Annual total for all visits (mean 15 visits) | Visits, travel, and waiting | 39 hoursb (29) | $707 ($591) |
| Other Anticoagulation-Related Activities | Mean Time Per Year (Median, Range) | $ Mean (Median) Valuea | Sensitivity Analyses, Mean Time per Yearc | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Diet and food preparation | 40.9 hours (0, 0-274) | 9.5 hours | ||
| Pharmacy trips | 9.4 hours (6, 0-66) | 5.5 hours | ||
| E-mails and phone calls communicating with anticoagulation providers | 1.4 hours (0, 0-32) | 1.1 hours | ||
| Annual total for other anticoagulation-related activities | 52.7 hours (19) | 16.4 hours | ||
| Overall annual total for anticoagulation clinic visits (including travel and waiting) and other anticoagulation-related activitiesd | 93.9 hours (58.7) | $1799 ($1132) | ||
Value of time calculated using the human capital method with an hourly rate of $19.29.
When also including companion time for subjects who had someone accompany them for the visit (26% of subjects), the mean annual time for visits (including travel and waiting) increased from 39 to 48 hours of person time per year.
Data for the times for “other anticoagulation-related activities” were obtained from self-report from the questionnaire (see Web Appendix 2 at http://mdm.sagepub.com/supplemental) rather than prospectively, thus introducing potential recall bias. Results for some of these times revealed mean values that were considerably greater than the median values. Thus, we conducted sensitivity analyses removing unlikely responses. For diet and food preparation, we removed responses of greater than 10 minutes extra per day (16 subjects). For pharmacy trips, we removed those reporting more than an average of 1 trip per month (9 subjects) and those reporting over 2 hours per trip (8 subjects). For e-mails and phone calls communicating with anticoagulation providers, we removed 1 subject reporting an average of 8 communications per month. All other subjects reported between 0 and 2 communications per month for 0 to 60 minutes each, on average.
When also including companion time, the mean annual total increased to 100.5 hours, and the mean value increased to $1939.