Abstract
Common illness is the most symptoms sickness in people. Since they are less severe and less complicated, people could do initial selfcare to recover from these symptoms. Receiving services at drug stores is therefore an option for people. This is the first study to estimate the cost savings of common illnesses that cover 16 symptoms as announced by the National Health Security Office (NHSO) in conjunction with the Pharmacy Council in the new Common Illness pharmacy project at drug stores to cost of Thailand's health system. This study gathered retrospective secondary data from several studies those reported the number of visits for treatment 16 symptoms common illnesses, direct medical costs direct nonmedical costs, and indirect costs. The cost of illness of treatment for 16 symptoms common illnesses at a pharmacy compared with outpatient treatment at a hospital from 3 perspectives: government perspective, patient perspective and social perspective were estimated. This study assumed that patient is responsible for cost of drug and health care services. The average number of hospital visits of treatment for 16 symptoms common illnesses was 2,356 visits per month. The first most 3 symptom groups that patients received services were sore throat, fever, and abdominal pain. The average number of hospital visits were 529, 442 and 394 visits. The estimation of the cost savings of treatment for 16 symptoms common illnesses at drug stores to cost of Thailand's health system from 3 perspectives including government, patient, and societal at tertiary care hospital were 446 – 683, 665 – 901, and 742 – 927 Baht per visit, respectively. When calculating from the amount of service received in a year, it was found that the average cost saving per year were 16.49 – 25.23, 24.56 – 33.30, and 27.39 – 34.26 million Baht, respectively. At secondary care hospital, cost saving per visit were 212 – 448, 430 - 667, and 507 - 692 Baht, respectively. Cost saving per year were 7.81 – 16.56, 15.88 – 24.63, and 18.72 – 25.58 million Baht, respectively. In conclusion, every 1 Baht reimbursed for treatment 16 symptoms common illnesses at drug stores will save additional costs in Thailand's health system if people choose to receive treatment services for 16 symptoms common illnesses at drug stores instead of receiving outpatient services from tertiary care hospitals saving ranged from 1.41 – 8.58 Baht and secondary hospitals savings ranged from 0.67-5.63 Baht. This savings comes from the fact that people do not have to take time off work to wait for receiving health care services at the hospital. It can be concluded that the treatment for 16 symptoms common illnesses at drug stores can clearly save costs.
