Presentation (CTI)

OBJECTIVES: Cancer affects the person physically due to illness, psychologically as it is a complex disease, and financially as treatment and medication cost is very high. Medical expenditures among cancer patients vary drastically. The cost of treating cancer is unavoidable so my analysis brings attention to Shared Decision Making (SDM), which not only helps the patients to make a right decision for the treatment but also helps to reduce the financial burden of both patient and hospital. The objective of this research is to analyze the impact of SDM amongst cancer patients on expenditure by insurance types and total emergency visits.
METHODS: Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) data was used for the analysis from 2002 to 2022. The cancer patients were divided into two groups: Group 1- Patients with SDM and Group 2- Patients without SDM. Trend-analysis for the annual total medical expenditures, medical expenditure by payer-type (Medicare, Medicaid and Private insurance) and total number of emergency visits was performed for the two groups. The independent variable includes two groups of SDM, and dependent variable includes: TOTEXP (total medical expenditure), ERTOT (Emergency Room Visits), MCAID (Medicaid expenditure), MCARE (Medicare expenditure) and PRIVATE (Private insurance expenditure).
RESULTS: Patients receiving SDM had lower mean total medical expenditure compared to those not receiving SDM ($14,561 vs. $16,215). Lower mean expenditures were observed among patients receiving SDM for private insurance ($14,120 vs. $15,876) and Medicare ($15,858 vs. $17,408). In contrast, higher expenditure ($20,264 vs. $19,930) was found for Medicaid beneficiaries. Overall, emergency department utilization was also lower among the SDM group, with a mean of 0.32 visits compared to 0.40 visits among patients not receiving SDM.
CONCLUSIONS: Overall, lower medical expenditure and utilization of emergency visits was found amongst the cancer patients who received SDM.