OBJECTIVES

Treatment with intravenous iron (ferric-carboxymaltose, FCM) has been shown to improve outcomes such as NYHA class and hospital length of stay (LOS) in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) and iron deficiency/anemia (ID/A), a co-morbidity of CHF. A budget impact model (BIM) showed that FCM therapy in these patients is almost cost neutral from a German payers perspective. The aim of this study was to prove the findings from the BIM with German claims data.

METHODS

A retrospective cohort analysis was conducted using data from the GWQ ServicePlus AG containing German claims of over 4 million covered lives. To show the effect of FCM treatment, CHF patients (identified by ICD-10 I50.11 – I50.14) with first FCM (ATC B03AC01) prescription in 2016 were identified. NYHA Class was observed one quarter before FCM treatment and two quarters after the treatment for each patient. NYHA classes were documented from Q3 2015 to Q2 2017. Health care costs for the pre-treatment and post treatment period were measured.

RESULTS

In total, 525 individuals with FCM treatment and NYHA class documentation were identified. The effect of FMC treatment lead to decrease of costs in outpatient treatment from 1087 € per year in the pre-treatment period 2015 to 950 € in the post-treatment period 2017 (p≤0,0001). Costs for pharmaceuticals decreased from 1529 € to 1184 €, (p≤0.0001). Average LOS and hospital cost were lower in the post-treatment period (7 vs. 4 days; 3173 € vs. 2056 €). The NYHA class was stable at 2.9 throughout the whole period.

CONCLUSIONS

Claims data showed that treatment of CHF patients with FCM leads to reduced health care cost in the outpatient as well as in the hospital setting. There were no changes in NYHA classes observed, which indicates that FCM stabilizes the worsening of HF in those patients.