Contents

    3.1 Hospital expenditure
    3.2 Prescription drugs
    3.3 General ophthalmic services
    3.4 Other direct healthcare costs
    3.5 Summary of direct healthcare costs

    Summary

    Health care costs of vision impairment and blindness are those incurred within the health care system by the government or other payers (including patients), as a result of treating these conditions. In 2010, health care costs included:

    • hospital expenditure of €57.5 million for public hospitals and €12.5 million for private hospitals, estimated using data on hospital activity in the ROI and costs per diagnostic related group;
    • prescription drug expenditure of €16.6 million, estimated from data on prescriptions for AMD and glaucoma treatments;
    • expenditure on general ophthalmic services for people with vision impairment of €15.7 million, estimated from data on eye examinations in the ROI; and
    • expenditure on assessment and care of the visually impaired of €14.4 million (a proxy for outpatient expenditure, community care and residential care), estimated from past data on the Disability Programme in the ROI.

    The total health care costs of vision impairment and blindness summed to €116.7 million in 2010. These are projected to rise to €127.4 million by 2015 and €136.8 million by 2020.

    This section estimates the direct health care costs of VI and blindness in the ROI. These include costs to the Irish health care system that are associated with treatment of partial sight and blindness. Health care costs estimated in this study, for which data are available, include:

    • hospital inpatient and day patient expenditure;
    • expenditure on prescription drugs;
    • general ophthalmic services (eye examinations and corrective vision aids); and
    • capital and non-capital public expenditure on assessment and care of the vision impaired (as part of the ROI’s Disability Programme).

    There are no available top-down data on total health care expenditure in the ROI by disease category (unlike some other countries such as Australia and the UK). For this reason, the direct cost components for which data are available were estimated separately and summed to estimate the total health care cost of VI and blindness in the ROI. There are likely to be other elements in the total health care cost of VI and blindness for which data are not available, however these could not be estimated without relevant data. Regardless, the costs estimated in this section are expected to comprise the vast majority of direct costs in the ROI.

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