OBJECTIVES: Diabetic arthropathy, skin, oral and other specified complications of diabetes can be associated with significant decrease in quality of life and can increase health insurance costs. The aim of our study was to determine the epidemiological disease burden of diabetes mellitus with these other specified complications.

METHODS: Data were derived from the financial database of the Hungarian National Health Insurance Fund Administration (NHIFA), for the year 2018. Data analysed included annual health insurance costs, patient numbers and cost distribution calculated for age groups and sex. The following cost categories were included into the study: general practice care, home care, in- and outpatient care, medical imaging, laboratory diagnostics, pharmaceuticals and medical aids. Patients were identified with the following code of the International Classification of Diseases 10^th revision: E1160.

RESULTS: In 2018, the NHIFA spent 676.79 million Hungarian Forints (HUF) on the treatment of patients with diabetes with the assessed complications which equals to 2.50 million American Dollars (USD), or 2.12 million Euros (EUR). 48.8% of costs was spent on the treatment of male, 51.2% on female patients. The highest patient numbers were in general practice care: 5,476 men (48.7%), 5,767 women (51.3%) in total 11,243 patients. Pharmaceuticals (76.2% of total health insurance costs in men, 71.0% in women), acute inpatient care (6.0% in men, 10.5% in women) and general practice care (7.1% in men, 7.2% in women) were the main cost drivers, while all other forms of medical care amounted to 10.7% in men and 11.3% in women. Annual health care treatment cost (according to pharmaceutical use) per patient was 86,031 HUF (318 USD/270 EUR) in men and 87,416 HUF (323 USD/274 EUR) in women.

CONCLUSIONS: Pharmaceuticals were found to be the major cost drivers. Acute inpatient care costs showed a major difference between men and women.