IN-PATIENT COSTS OF CORONAVIRUS DISEASE 2019 WITH FINANCIAL REGULATIONS AND HEATH ECONOMY

Abstract

Introduction: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emerging disease that infects patients, who have critical and complex health problems, that need to be treated in hospitals. The financial regulations and heath economy to management efficiency in hospitals is an important indicator for hospital administrators to make decisions for efficient health service provision.Then, the purposes were to: analyze the cost of in-patient with COVID-19 per day and per admission, and compare COVID-19 severity with the cost of in-patient.
Methods: This retrospective study using secondary data from the standard data set HOSxP data system program 43 folders of 18 , between 2021 and 2022 was conducted. The total hospital costs was analyzed from the 4191 samples of in-patients with COVID-19 on the 18 community hospital in Sakon Nakhon Province, Thailand.
Results:The majority of samples were females 52.6%, age group between 30 - 39 of 26.0 %, the insurance type was Social Security Scheme 60.9% (average sleeping days 11 days), lived in Sakon Nakhon province, Thailand 77.7%, no medical conditions 97.7 %, the severity of disease was asymptomatic and mild symptoms 80.5%. In addition, the cost of an in-patient COVID-19 ward was 104.1 USD per day. The cost of complication diseases resulted from 1,063.3 USD - 1,681.1 USD per admission, moderate symptoms and pneumonia were 1,681.1 USD per admission, and mild symptoms were 1,063.3 USD per admission, which was higher than the standard cost (p<0.015). Furthermore, the cost of mild symptoms was 1,063.3 USD per admission was higher than the estimated cost (p<0.05), and the cost of moderate symptoms with pneumonia was 1,681.1 USD per admission, higher than the estimated cost (p<0.001).
Conclusions: As a consequence, the various levels of clinical severity and the cost of an in-patient with COVID-19 is higher than the standard cost and estimated cost. However, there is still no suitable fiscal legislation.