Time to diagnosis and associated costs of an outpatient vs inpatient setting in the diagnosis of lymphoma: a retrospective study of a large cohort of major lymphoma subtypes in Spain

Table 6 Mean costs (€) of outpatients (n = 1184) and inpatients (n = 535)

Items	Inpatients	Outpatients	Cost per patient (€), mean (SD)
	One-day stay	One visit	Inpatients^a	Outpatients^b	P value
Staff salary^c	228.17^d	80.52	2806.49 (174.00)	262.50 (22.92)	<.001
QDU (1) and (2) visits^e	na	127.24	na	414.80 (0.11)
Diagnostic tests^f	83.48	218.77	1026.80 (76.00)	713.19 (38.85)	<.001
Therapeutic procedures^g	1.67	0.54	20.54 (3.53)	1.76 (0.23)	<.001
Pharmaceuticals and consumables	9.95	0.87	122.39 (20.44)	2.84 (0.59)	<.001
Consultations^h	2.47	0.32	30.38 (9.57)	1.04 (0.37)	<.001
Adverse events	0.50	0.09	6.15 (2.37)	0.29 (0.10)	<.001
Depreciation	2.18	3.70	26.81 (2.44)	12.06 (0.90)	<.001
Total costs	328.42	432.05	4039.56 (513.02)	1408.48 (197.32)	<.001

Abbreviations: na not applicable. For other abbreviations, see Table 1
^aMean (SD) overall admission time for diagnosis: 12.3 (3.3) days
^bMean (SD) overall number of outpatients’ visits during the QDU time for diagnosis: 3.26 (1.2)
^cSee Methods for details about salary of staff at inpatient wards
^dSalary of staff at inpatient wards in charge of 12.5 patients (each ward has 25 beds)
^eThe cost of an average outpatient consultation was based on officially established Catalan Health Service fees
^fInclude costs of laboratory testing and any other investigation (e.g. imaging studies or cytologies and biopsies). The costs of each type of diagnostic tests were based on hospital tariffs in QDU (1) and established fees of the Catalan Health Service in QDU (2)
^gInclude costs of procedures such as therapeutic paracentesis and thoracentesis performed to drain excessive amounts of ascites and pleural fluid, respectively
^hInclude costs of consultations with professionals such as hospital specialists, dieticians, and social workers
Missing data: variables ‘diagnostic tests’ (outpatients = 2.2%, inpatients = 1.5%)¸ ‘therapeutic procedures’ (inpatients = 0.2%)¸ ‘pharmaceuticals and consumables’ (outpatients = 1.7%, inpatients = 1.6%), ‘consultations’ (outpatients = 9.4%, inpatients = 6.8%)

ISSN: 1471-2407