The average cost of inflammatory bowel disease care neared $16,000 per patient in 2019 (2024)

Key takeaways:

• The average cost per IBD patient increased from $8,477 in 2009 to $15,786 in 2018-2019.
• The annual cost for at least one biologic increased while the cost of nonbiologic medications decreased.

LAS VEGAS — The cost associated with treating inflammatory bowel disease “significantly increased” from 2009 to 2019 and was largely attributed to the annual cost of biologics, a presenter reported at the Crohn’s & Colitis Congress.

“We know that IBD requires a large amount of health care resources to care for these individuals,” Stephanie Coward, PhD, research manager and IBD unit epidemiologist at the University of Calgary, told Healio. “We aimed to quantify the direct care costs that are attributed to the health care of people with IBD; what individual components, such as hospitalization, cost; and what proportion of costs can be attributed to each component.”

Coward continued: “We did this to help health care systems plan for the future and ensure that these individuals receive the care they need.”

Using population-based administrative data, Coward and colleagues identified patients with IBD from fiscal year 2009-2010 to 2018-2019 and converted investigated costs to 2020 costs using Statistics Canada’s Consumer Price Index.

According to results, the average cost of an IBD patient “significantly increased” from 2009 ($8,477; 95% CI, 8,407-8.909) to 2018-’19 ($15,786; 95% CI, 15,478-16,094) with an average annual percentage change (AAPC) of 6.28% (95% CI, 5.51-7.05). While the annual cost of medication for a patient on at least one biologic increased (AAPC = 3.48%; 95% CI, 2.32-4.65), the average annual cost per patient of IBD-related nonbiologic medications decreased (AAPC = –2.32; 95% CI, –3.48 to –1.14).

“IBD is an exceptionally expensive disease to manage,” Coward said. “Costs of treating IBD have been significantly increasing over time with the proportion of costs associated with medication increasing — they now account for over half the of the total direct health care costs.”

In addition, the cost for emergency department visits (AAPC = 3.51%; 95% CI, 2.47-4.55) and colonoscopies (AAPC = 1.06%; 95% CI, 0.33-1.81) increased, while IBD-related hospitalizations (AAPC = 0.79; 95% CI, –0.33 to 1.92) and surgeries (AAPC = 0.16; 95% CI, –4.91 to 5.5) remained stable. The largest contributors to IBD costs were medications (57.6%) and IBD-related hospitalizations (20.6%).

“Providers can assist patients by assuring they receive the care that they need to manage their disease,” Coward told Healio. “This may include advocating for more holistic healthcare treatment, such as multidisciplinary clinics, in order to keep individuals from needing hospitalizations or surgery, or universal pharmacare to address the costs associated with medications.”

She continued: “We need additional research on the indirect costs of the IBD population. We need research that does not just evaluate the direct costs to health care systems but evaluates the impacts on society as a whole.”