OBJECTIVES: To compare costs of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) with the reminding intervention (RI) and without reminding intervention (WRI) from the public payer perspective. Urinary catheter (UC) is one of the most invasive devices used in health care, and its insertion contributes to the development of urinary tract infections (UTI), which accounts for 40% of all nosocomial infections. About 12%-16% of patients in the intensive care unit have a UC inserted at some point during hospitalization. Unnecessary use of UC may lead to CAUTI, which represents about 80% of UTI, contributing not only to excess morbidity and mortality, but also increasing costs. A prospective study published (Apisarnthanarak 2007) evaluated the effectiveness of a program to improve hospital quality, which included an intervention to remind physicians to remove unnecessary UC. METHODS: Efficacy data was obtained from the literature which compared RI to WRI. Data from the Brazilian Hospital Information System (SIH/DATASUS) from 2012 was used to define the annual number of high complexity admissions of adult patients in public hospitals, assuming WRI as current practice. Resource utilization was estimated through published data and unit costs were obtained from Brazilian official price lists. RESULTS: 659.934 hospitalizations were identified in the database, with a mean length of stay of 6.7 days. According to Apisarnthanarak 2007, RI to WRI showed reductions of CAUTI of 9.4%. The estimated consumable costs associated were 1,222.45BRL/pacient/7 days of treatment. For all admissions in 2012, the total cost of CAUTI represented 247,091,949.90BRL for WRI and 223,865,239.68BRL for RI, respectively (medical supplies only). The estimated savings were 23,226,710.22BRL/year for the Brazilian public system. CONCLUSIONS: RI showed that staff education generates benefits for the hospital and patients, decreasing costs and unnecessary hospitalization. Further researches including other clinical outcomes, longer follow-up and complications could result in higher savings for the public payer.