When many think of costly treatments, cancer springs to mind. However, tumours are only ranked seventh, accounting for 6.5% of Switzerland’s healthcare costs, according to a study published this week.
Healthcare spending is particularly high in Switzerland, consuming 11.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020, a per capita sum of 7,179 purchasing power parity adjusted US dollars. Per capita Swiss healthcare costs are second only to the United States.
The study published this week by researchers at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) aims to better understand where money is spent on healthcare and where costs are increasing most.
Mental disorders were the most expensive major disease group in both 2012 and 2017, followed by musculoskeletal disorders and neurological disorders.
One of the reasons diseases like cancer are less costly that some might expect is because they can be so lethal. The most expensive diseases tend to be those that are difficult to treat and that patients must live with for extended periods of time.
Mental illness, something that can last for extended periods, consumes one in every seven francs (14.3%) spent on healthcare in Switzerland. When neurological disorders (8.5%), such as dementia are included, this percentage rises to 22.8% of healthcare costs.
Musculoskeletal conditions, such as arthritis and osteoporosis that people can live with for decades, are the second most costly category, accounting for 13.8% of spending. Fourth is injuries (8.4%), followed by cardiovascular diseases (7.7%), other non-communicable diseases (6.7%), tumours (6.5%), oral and dental diseases (6.0%), communicable diseases (4.8%), disease of the sensory organs (4.5%), diseases of the digestive tract (4.4%). Check ups (3.6%) and prevention (2.4%) only consume 6% of the total money spent.
Total health care spending increased by 19.7% between 2012 and 2017. An increase in spending per patient was the most important spending driver (43.5% of total increase), followed by changes in population size (29.8%), in population structure (14.5%), and in disease prevalence (12.2%). The large increase in spending per patient may indicate an increase in treatment intensity, which may or may not prove cost effective further down the line, said the report. An ageing of the population is also adding to per capita costs. More than half of healthcare spending occurs in the last 20 years of life.
More on this:
ZHAW study (in English)
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