PLoS ONE (Jan 2024)

Hospital services utilisation and cost before and after COVID-19 hospital treatment: Evidence from Indonesia.

  • Muhammad Fikru Rizal,
  • Firdaus Hafidz,
  • Gilbert Renardi Kusila,
  • Wan Aisyiah,
  • Dedy Revelino,
  • Erzan Dhanalvin,
  • Ayunda Oktavia,
  • Ilyasa,
  • Citra Jaya,
  • Benjamin Saut,
  • Mahlil Ruby

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0305835
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 19, no. 7
p. e0305835

Abstract

Read online

ObjectiveTo estimate hospital services utilisation and cost among the Indonesian population enrolled in the National Health Insurance (NHI) program before and after COVID-19 hospital treatment.Methods28,159 Indonesian NHI enrolees treated with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in hospitals between May and August 2020 were compared to 8,995 individuals never diagnosed with COVID-19 in 2020. A difference-in-difference approach is used to contrast the monthly all-cause utilisation rate and total claims of hospital services between these two groups. A period of nine months before and three to six months after hospital treatment were included in the analysis.ResultsA substantial short-term increase in hospital services utilisation and cost before and after COVID-19 treatment was observed. Using the fifth month before treatment as the reference period, we observed an increased outpatient visits rate in 1-3 calendar months before and up to 2-4 months after treatment (pConclusionIndividuals with COVID-19 who required hospital treatment had considerably higher healthcare resource utilisation in the short-term, before and after the treatment. These findings indicated that the total cost of treating COVID-19 patients might include the pre- and post-acute period.