Health care utilization and cost after discharge from a mental health hospital; an RCT comparing community residential aftercare and treatment as usual

Table 1 Cost in 2015 per inpatient day and per hour for various mental health services, with the sector responsible for financing

Place	Cost	Financed by university hospital	Financed by municipality
Cost per inpatient day (24 h)
Mental health hospital	1065 EUR	X
Community mental health centre	619 EUR	X
Community residential aftercare^a	270 EUR		X
Cost per hour:
Outpatient treatment at hospital	292 EUR	X
Ambulant treatment^b	181 EUR	X	X
Home help	84 EUR		X
Home care nursing	84 EUR		X
Community mental health consultation	90 EUR		X

The exchange rates were €100 = 948.50 NOK, rate at the Norges Bank on 05.07. 2017 using the mid-price (the midpoint between the buying and selling price)
^aFor the community residential aftercare, all operating cost (staff cost, and all expenditures) in 2015 was 805,738 EUR excluding capital cost. The operating cost was divided by 14 beds and 365 days and gave a cost of 184 EUR per inpatient day. The capital costs used was the mean of all nursing homes and residential aftercare units in the municipality (86 EUR)
^bFor the ambulant treatment, the cost was recalculated, as the cost provided by the administration (1168 EUR per hour) seemed too high. This was due to the hour cost being higher than the cost of one day in the hospital, and those providing the cost figures could not specify this figure. The recalculation was based on the yearly budget in 2015 of 1,062,309 EUR. It was assumed that the 10-full time equivalent employees had face-to-face time contact with the services user in 1/3 (due to travel, sometimes more than one employee visiting, administrative work etc.) of their work-time. One full time equivalent equals 1750 h per year (37.5 h per week). This gives some 5800 h of face-to-face services to the approximately 100 users receiving this service. This corresponds well with the number of hours of ambulant treatment observed in the trial among those receiving such services (median 53 h)
Cost is in EUR

ISSN: 1471-244X