AimThis study aims to calculate the cost of illness concerning multiple sclerosis (MS) from the perspective of the German social insurance system.Subjects and methodsExpenditures for MS (ICD-10 GM: G35) were evaluated retrospectively for the year 2012 from the perspective of the social insurance system. Expenditures from the German statutory health insurance, the Federal statutory pension fund, and statutory long-term care insurances were calculated based on administrative claims of a large nationwide health insurance and statistics from the Federal statutory pension fund. Additionally, expenditures of the long-term care insurances were requested by standardized questionnaire. Costs were extrapolated for all health and statutory long-term care insurances.ResultsIn the base case, extrapolated expenditures for German statutory health insurance amount to 1.062 billion €. German statutory pension funds expenses for MS were around 258.700 million € on medical rehabilitation and early retirement. Extrapolated for the whole population insured expenditures of the statutory long-term care insurances on persons with MS were approximately 372.200 million €.ConclusionThis study delivered important information regarding the economic burden of MS for the social insurance system in Germany. The top-down process of data collection yielded population-based results on the cost of illness. |