Table 3.
Cost analysis and patient impact
| Tertiary care | Primary care | |
|---|---|---|
| A Healthcare costs | ||
| Physician visit | 89.85 | 38.35 |
| US | ||
| Technical component | 47.30 | 47.30 |
| Professional component | 23.70 | 23.7 |
| Patients undergoing US annually, % | 52.6 | 56.5 |
| Cost of US per patient per year | 42.74 | 37.35 |
| Laboratory | ||
| TSH | 5.20 | 5.20 |
| Free T4 | 3.20 | 3.20 |
| Free T3 | 5.82 | 5.82 |
| TG | 11.00 | 11.00 |
| Anti-TG antibody | 11.70 | 11.70 |
| Healthcare cost per patient per year | 164.12 | 118.01 |
| Stimulated TG | ||
| rhTSH | 38/224 (17.0%) | 5/93 (5.4%) |
| Stimulated TG cost per patienta | 822.39 | 44.93 |
| B Patient impactb | ||
| Travel time, min | 140 (6–826) | 8 |
| Distance travelled, km | 191.5 (2.2–1,358) | 10 |
| Cost of travel (CAD 0.40/km) | 76.6 (0.88–543.2) | 4 |
Costs are in CAD. Patient impact values are medians (range).
a
The cost of stimulated TG over the entire follow-up period is based upon costs for rhTSH, TG, and anti-TG and averaged over all patients in the group.
b
For primary care, the patient impact is based upon assumptions rather than actual calculations (see Methods).