OBJECTIVES: A representative evaluation of CAD costs in Poland including General Practitioners (GPs) and Specialists’ (S) settings. METHODS: A representative sample of 2593 Polish patients with confirmed CAD (1977 patients under GP’s care, 616 patients under S care). A time horizon of the analysis was 12 month and a retrospective approach was applied. The study estimated both direct medical and indirect costs resulted from sick leaves, pensions and sickness benefits. Unit costs were obtained from available published data derived from the National Health Fund and the Polish Social Insurance Institution. A prevalence based method using National Statistical Office data was used to estimate economic burden of CAD. RESULTS: The distribution of total costs was similar in the GPs’ and specialists’ settings. Hospitalisation and invasive treatment constituted main direct medical costs’ drivers in both conditions. The average direct medical cost per CAD patient reached annually €1079.09. The average societal cost €1437.19 when the merely indirect costs related to the absence from work (€358.10) was included. Average cost covering also indirect cost related to the patients’ disability increased to the €2254.17. The total average costs were significantly (14.4%) higher in Ss’ than in GPs’ settings. In accordance with the lowest boundary estimate of CAD prevalence rate (2.9%), the total, societal burden of CAD in Poland in 2005 amounted to €2056.7 million. More than half of this cost (52.1%) was due to the indirect cost, 69.5% of which resulted from patients’ disability. CONCLUSIONS: CAD imposes a high economic burden for the third party payer as well as for Polish society. Clearly, there is a need to develop and apply innovative, cost-effective treatment strategies that will reduce the need for hospitalisation and invasive treatment and may successfully be implemented in the GPs’ practice.