Predicting healthcare expenditure by multimorbidity groups

This article has two main purposes. Firstly, to model the integrated healthcare expenditure for the entire population of a health district in Spain, according to multimorbidity, using Clinical Risk Groups (CRG). Secondly, to show how the predictive model is applied to the allocation of health budgets.

The database used contains the information of 156,811 inhabitants in a Valencian Community health district in 2013. The variables were: age, sex, CRG's main health statuses, severity level, and healthcare expenditure. The two-part models were used for predicting healthcare expenditure. From the coefficients of the selected model, the relative weights of each group were calculated to set a case-mix in each health district.

Models based on multimorbidity-related variables better explained integrated healthcare expenditure. In the first part of the two-part models, a logit model was used, while the positive costs were modelled with a log-linear OLS regression. An adjusted R² of 46-49% between actual and predicted values was obtained. With the weights obtained by CRG, the differences found with the case-mix of each health district proved most useful for budgetary purposes.

The expenditure models allowed improved budget allocations between health districts by taking into account morbidity, as opposed to budgeting based solely on population size.