Costs of physician services in pharmacoeconomic analyses

摘要

As specified in most guidelines for pharmacoeconomic analysis, units of service and the cost per unit of service should be collected separately for completeness and transparency [1,2]. Bundling of units of service and cost per unit makes it difficult to understand the underlying process by which costs are being accumulated and particularly difficult to estimate the marginal cost of care. In this editorial, I consider the costing of physician services for pharmacoeconomic analyses. Costs of physician services are examined through the use of data from an international trial of medications for a chronic condition. Information on the use of physician services was collected within the trial and augmented by highly detailed information on services provided for selected, common diagnoses requiring treatment. One important observation from the trial was that the use and cost of physician services costs were related to the underlying payment system.