OBJECTIVES

To evaluate the effect of canceling the drug markup policy on the disease burden of internal and surgical diseases.

METHODS

Patients first discharge diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) or cholecystolithiasis (CS) were identified with ICD-10 and selected as research objects, respectively. The medical expenses data of these patients were extracted from the hospital information system in a class 3A hospital of Chengdu from May 2015 to August 2018, and an interrupted time series model was build using SPSS 25.0 to evaluate the impact of policy implementation on disease burden.

RESULTS

A total of 5,764 cases were analyzed by interrupted time series model , the drug costs, drug costs proportion and the total hospitalization costs of patients with T2DM or CS were both decreased significantly after the implementation of drug markup policy. However, the structure of hospitalization costs for the two diseases changed differently, which shows that the reform had a more significant effect on reducing the total hospitalization costs for T2DM patients, while the cost of laboratory and treatment increased significantly. For CS patients, it had a more significant effect on reducing the drug costs, while the cost of surgery and anesthesia have a significant increase.

CONCLUSIONS

The service costs reflecting the labor value of medical staff, such as surgery expenses and treatment expenses, have been increased, and the adjustment of the cost structure also makes the cost of laboratory examination and medical consumables unreasonable rise. Different diseases vary in the diagnostic examination, treatment strategy and medical resource consumption, therefore, precise policy support should be provided according to the specific conditions of different diseases to ensure the operation of public hospitals. Evaluating the effect of canceling drug markup policy, can provide empirical evidence and decision-making reference for the government to formulate further deepening reform of the medical and health care system.