Costs and Benefits of Insuring Psychological Services for Depression in Canada
2017
This article, published in Psychiatric Services, describes the development of a discrete event simulation model to investigate the costs and effects of increasing access to publicly-funded psychotherapy for depression compared to the status quo in a public health care system in Canada. The analyses from both the societal and health system perspective are conducted over a 40-year time horizon. Data on the probability of events, costs (direct and indirect), and utility estimates are obtained from the 2012 Canadian Community Health Survey on mental health and the published literature. Societal costs are measured using the human capital approach.
Results demonstrate that increased access to mental health services for individuals with major depression would lead to significantly lower lifetime prevalence of hospitalizations (27.9% versus 30.2% base case) and suicide attempts (14.1% versus 14.6%); fewer suicides (184 versus 250 suicides); a per-person gain of 0.17 quality-adjusted life years; and average societal cost savings of 2,590 Canadian dollars per person (range $1,266-$6,320). Publicly funding psychological services translate to additional costs of $123,212,872 ($67,709,860-$190,922,732) over 40 years. Savings to society would reach, on average, $246,997,940 ($120,733,356-$602,713,120).
Based on these findings the authors state that in Canada every $1 spent on psychological services yield $2 in savings to society. The authors conclude that covering psychological services as part of Medicare would pay for itself.
Costs and Benefits of Insuring Psychological Services for Depression in Canada
Source:
Vasiliadis HM, Dezetter A, Latimer E et al. Assessing the Costs and Benefits of Insuring Psychological Services as Part of Medicare for Depression in Canada. Psychiatric Services 2017; 68 (9): 899-906. http://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.201600395