Economic burden of cardiovascular diseases before and after Iran's health transformation plan: evidence from a referral hospital of Iran

Different countries have set different policies to control and decrease the costs of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Iran was aiming to reduce the economic burden of different disease by a recent reform from named as health transformation plan (HTP). This study aimed to examine the economic burden of CVDs before and after of HTP. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 600 patients with CVDs, who were randomly selected from a specialized cardiovascular hospital in the north-west of Iran. Direct and indirect costs of CVDs were calculated using the cost of illness and human capital approaches. Data were collected using a researcher-made checklist obtained from several sources including structured interviews, the Statistical Center of Iran, Iran's Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare, the central bank of Iran, and the data of global burden of disease obtained from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation to estimate direct and mortality costs. All costs were calculated in Iranian Rials (IRR). Total costs of CVDs were about 5571 and 6700 billion IRR before and after the HTP, respectively. More than 62% of the total costs of CVDs accounted for premature death before (64.89%) and after (62.01%) the HTP. The total hospitalization costs of CVDs was significantly increased after the HTP (p = 0.038). In both times, surgical services and visiting had the highest and lowest share of hospitalization costs, respectively. The OOP expenditure decreased significantly and reached from 54.2 to 36.7%. All hospitalization costs, except patients' OOP expenditure, were significantly increased after the HTP about 1.3 times. Direct non-medical costs reached from 2.4 to 3.3 billion before and after the HTP, respectively. Economic burden of CVDs increased in the north-west of Iran after the HTP due to the increase of all direct and indirect costs, except the OOP expenditure. Non-allocation of defined resources, which coincided with the international and national political and economic challenges in Iran, led to unsustainable resources of the HTP. So, no results of this study can be attributed solely to the HTP. Therefore, more detailed studies should be carried out on the reasons for the significant increase in CVDs costs in the region.