OBJECTIVES: Femoral neck fractures are common presenting injury with high social and economic burden. The aim of our study was to calculate the annual health insurance treatment cost of femoral neck fractures in Hungary.

METHODS: The data were derived from the financial database of the Hungarian National Health Insurance Fund Administration (NHIFA), the only health care financing agency in Hungary. We analyzed the number of patients and the health insurance treatment cost for the year 2016. The following cost categories were included into the study: out-patient care, laboratory diagnostics, medical imaging, acute in-patient care, chronic in-patient care and drugs. Femoral neck fractures were identified with the following codes of the International Classification of Diseases 10^th revision: S72.00, S72.10 and S72.20.

RESULTS: Number of patients admitted to in-patient hospital care was 20,721 (70.9 % women and 29.1 % men) with a mean age of 77.39 years (women: 79.59 years; men: 72.05 years). The number of patient underwent outpatient care was 86,122 (69.5 % women and 30.5 % men) with a mean age of 76.23 years (women: 78.78 years; men: 70.42 years). For the treatment of patients with femoral fractures in 2016 the Hungarian National Health Insurance Fund Administration spent 10.722 billion Hungarian Forint (HUF) which equals 38.1 million American Dollars (USD) or 41.3 million Japanese Yen (JPY). Major cost drivers were acute inpatient care (90.3 % of total health insurance costs), chronic inpatient care (4.6 %) and outpatient care (3.2 %).

CONCLUSIONS: Femoral neck fractures represent a significant burden for the health insurance system. Most of the patients (69-70 %) are women. There is a significant difference in the onset of the disease: men are affected 7-8 years earlier than women.