OBJECTIVES : Type 2 diabetes (T2D) cost assessment from 2012 estimated total yearly direct medical costs of T2D in Slovenia to €99,120,419 with annual per capita costs of €834.70. A similar study for hypertension has not been done in Slovenia yet. In this study, we tried to estimate disease costs for a sample of patients with T2D, hypertension or both.

METHODS : A convenience sample of 202 patients was selected from Community Health centre in Ljubljana and all the direct costs of T2D/hypertension were copied from their medical records. At the same time, a survey of same patients was conducted about their out-of-pocket expenditures connected to the same diseases. The out-of-pocket expenditure categories were based on the previously conducted focus groups with the patients. The research was part of EU funded H2020 SCUBY project.

RESULTS : The total costs of T2D patient per capita amounted to €342. 38% of the total costs were represented by the medicines, 18.8% by medical devices, 8.4% for services at the primary and 22.5% for services at the secondary level. Out-of-pocket costs represented 12.2% of costs in patients with T2D. Only 18 patients out of 130 (13.8%) patients with T2D received insulin and 2 (1.6%) attended preventive education or training. The total per capita costs of patients with hypertension amounted to €179. The highest share was used for out-of-pocket expenditures (41.3%), followed by medicines (35.5%), services at the primary (18.3%), and services at the secondary level (4.1%).

CONCLUSIONS : The costs of treating chronic diseases are high; most of the funding is spent on medicines and devices. Only a very small share is spent on the education for better self-care and management of the disease by patients. Out-of-pocket costs represent a small share in T2D patients, but high share (41.3%) in hypertension patients.