RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Alzheimer's disease (AD) carries a significant economic burden, with costs peaking around the time of diagnosis. However, the cost of diagnosis, including the time leading up to it, has not been studied thoroughly. Furthermore, regionalized healthcare structure could result in differences in the pre-diagnostic costs for people with suspected AD. OBJECTIVE: This study set out to estimate the excess healthcare costs before and after AD diagnosis compared to a matched non-AD population and to investigate regional variation in AD healthcare costs in Denmark. METHODS: We used a register-based cohort of 25,523 matched pairs of new cases of AD and non-AD controls. The healthcare costs included costs on medication, and inpatient-, outpatient-, and primary care visits. Generalized estimating equations were employed to estimate the excess healthcare cost attributable to diagnosing AD, and the variation in costs across regions. RESULTS: Mean excess costs attributable to AD were 3,284 and 6,173 in the year before and after diagnosis, respectively. Regional differences in healthcare costs were identified in both the AD and control groups and were more pronounced in patients with AD (PwAD). CONCLUSION: PwAD incur higher healthcare costs across all cost categories in the year before and after diagnosis. Regional differences in healthcare utilization by PwAD may reveal potential variation in access to healthcare. These findings suggest that a more standardized and targeted diagnostic process may help reduce costs and variation in access to healthcare.