Level 4 seizure monitoring unit admissions are associated with reduced long-term health care costs

This study was undertaken to determine whether admission to dedicated seizure monitoring units (SMUs) result in reduced health care use (HCU). This was a retrospective open cohort study covering the years 2010-2018 of patients residing in Alberta, Canada, who were referred to the Calgary Comprehensive Epilepsy Program and admitted to a level 4 SMU. Patients were required to have ≥3 years pre- and postadmission follow-up. The outcome was the change in trajectory of composite HCU (primary care, specialist outpatient visits, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations) for the 3 years prior to and 3 years following SMU admission using the point of admission as the "index date." Secondary outcomes were HCU limited to specific settings. We excluded the first 30 days following the point of admission to mitigate the confounding admission would have on the postadmission HCU trajectory. We used adjusted restricted maximum likelihood linear and nonlinear effects models to determine trajectories expressed as Canadian dollars. A total of 315 of 600 (53%) patients met eligibility criteria. Mean age was 40 years (SD = 17.4), 176 (56%) were female, 220 (70%) had focal epilepsy, and 60 (19%) had functional seizures or physiologic seizure mimics without epilepsy as adjudicated by the attending physician at the point of discharge. Mean per person health care costs increased by CAD$341.28 (95% confidence interval [CI] = -25.17 to 707.74) for each successive 6-month interval prior to SMU admission (p = .07). Following admission, mean per person costs decreased by CAD$802.34 (95% CI = 699.62-905.06, p