Cost effectiveness of telecare management for pain and depression in patients with cancer: results from a randomized trial.

OBJECTIVE: Pain and depression are prevalent and treatable symptoms among patients with cancer, yet they are often undetected and undertreated. The Indiana Cancer Pain and Depression (INCPAD) trial demonstrated that telecare management can improve pain and depression outcomes. This article investigates the incremental cost effectiveness of the INCPAD intervention. METHODS: The INCPAD trial was conducted in 16 community-based urban and rural oncology practices in Indiana. Of the 405 participants, 202 were randomized to the intervention group and 203 to the usual-care group. Intervention costs were determined, and effectiveness outcomes were depression-free days and quality-adjusted life years. RESULTS: The intervention group was associated with a yearly increase of 60.3 depression-free days (S.E. = 15.4; P < 0.01) and an increase of between 0.033 and 0.066 quality-adjusted life years compared to the usual care group. Total cost of the intervention per patient was US$1189, which included physician, nurse care manager and automated monitoring set-up and maintenance costs. Incremental cost per depression-free day was US$19.72, which yields a range of US$18,018 to US$36,035 per quality-adjusted life year when converted to that metric. When measured directly, the incremental cost per quality-adjusted life year ranged from US$10,826 based on the modified EQ-5D to US$73,286.92 based on the SF-12. CONCLUSION: Centralized telecare management, coupled with automated symptom monitoring, appears to be a cost effective intervention for managing pain and depression in cancer patients.

Family out-of-pocket health care burden and children's unmet needs or delayed health care.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the relationship between family members' out-of-pocket (OOP) health care spending and unmet needs or delayed health care due to cost for children with and without special health care needs (SHCN). METHODS: Data come from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, 2002-2009, and include 63,462 observations representing 41,748 unique children. The primary outcome was having any unmet needs/delayed care as a result of the cost of medical care, dental care, or prescription drugs. We also examined having unmet needs/delayed care due to cost for each service separately. Key explanatory variables were OOP spending on the index child and OOP spending on other family members. We estimated multivariate instrumental variable models to adjust the results for potential bias from any unobserved factors that might influence both other family OOP costs and the outcome variable. RESULTS: An increase of other family OOP costs from $500 (50th percentile) to $3000 (90th percentile) was associated with a higher adjusted rate of any unmet need/delayed care due to cost (1.39% to 5.62%, P < .001, among children without SHCN; 3.17% to 7.87%, P = .01, among those with SHCN). Among children without SHCN, higher OOP costs among other family members were associated with higher levels of unmet needs or delays in medical, prescription drug, and dental care, while among children with SHCN, higher OOP costs among other family members was primarily associated with unmet or delayed dental care. CONCLUSIONS: Programs and policies that reduce the OOP costs of family members other than the child may improve the child's access to care.