Economic assessment of treatment of glomerulonephritis in Bulgaria

The study was conducted on review of clinical records of 49 patients with chronic glomerulonephritis, treated in the University Nephrology clinic, Medical University – Sofia for period of 1 year. The signs of observation were: age, sex, social status, basic and concomitant diagnosis, number of entrances in the clinic, number of days in hospital, laboratory tests (type, number, cost), consultations with another specialists, medicines (type, number, cost) and effect from the treatment.
         The average age of the inquired people was 42,35±15,92 years, 57% were men, 43% - women. The average cost of the treatment of a patient was 2866,42 bulgarian levas ( 1470 Euro)  per year for 3,35 patient’s entrances for an year. The cost of each hospitalization was 855,65 levas.(438 Euro). Patient’s treatment is funded by the National Health Insurance Fund  and is fixed for patients with glomerulonephritis on 780 levas., i.e. there are insufficiently funds for treatment. The laboratory tests are 11,77% from the total cost of the treatment, the medicines – 7,35%, the labour of the medical specialists – 45,23%, the rest 35,63% are to overhead expenses for bed space, food, outside services. The condition of  70% of the patients improved as a positive effect from the treatment, whereupon they are with a restored labour efficiency.
         The losses as result of the illness were found for particular individual and for the society. Each ill person is absent from work on average 63 days (hospital stay and temporary disability in home), which calculated on the grounds of the Gross Domestic Product per man of the labour force (by tentative data) is about 1000 Euro.
         Important differences are noted by comparison of these results with the expenses for hemodialysis treatment and kidney transplantation – therapeutical treatment is cheaper. The effective treatment leads to 85% of the patients on remission.