Cost and Return on Investment of a Team-Based Palliative Care Program for Parkinson Disease

Implementation of palliative care (PC) in neurology settings may improve symptom control and quality of life and reduce acute care admissions. The benefits of team-based PC for patients with Parkinson disease have been established through rigorous evidence standards including randomized controlled trials. However, evidence on implementation costs and return on investment (ROI) is unknown and may guide other providers and systems considering this model of care. We applied time-driven activity-based costing with reimbursable visits calculated using Medicare reimbursement rates in Colorado and current procedural technology codes to 2 outpatient clinics at the University of Colorado Hospital: neurology PC and movement disorders. Per-patient ROI was calculated as the ratio of the incremental difference in financial revenues divided by the incremental difference in investment to expand PC services. The cost per new patient was $154 and $98 for neuropalliative and movement disorders clinics, respectively. Established patient visit costs were $82 and $41 for the neuropalliative care and movement disorders clinics, respectively. The neurology PC clinic had per-patient revenue for new and established visits of $297 and $147, respectively, compared with $203 and $141 for new and established visits, respectively, at the comparator clinic. Based on our assumptions, for every $1 invested in expanding PC services, a projected $1.68 will be recouped by the hospital system for new patient visits, and $0.13 will be recouped for established patient visits. These amounts are context dependent, and a calculator was created to allow other systems to estimate costs and ROI. Our results suggest that in an academic medical setting, both neurology PC and movement disorders clinics provided increased revenue to the health system. Opportunities to improve ROI include efficient allocation of personnel to new and established visits, expanding telemedicine, and other cost offsets for complex patients not estimated in this analysis. ROI may also be greater in health systems that benefit from cost savings such as accountable care organizations. Our approach may be applied to other novel care models. Future research efforts will focus on estimating the continued sustainability of this innovative outpatient care model.