[Aims:] A General Practitioner health assessment (GP-HA) is a comprehensive health evaluation conducted by a GP to assess individuals’ health and well-being, costing between $60 (brief) and $270 (long). This study aimed to estimate and compare direct healthcare costs between residents in residential aged care facilities (RACFs) who underwent a GP-HA to those who did not.
[Methods:] A retrospective cohort study was conducted using linked aged and healthcare data of individuals (≥65 years) who entered RACFs in 2018. Residents with a GP-HA were propensity score matched (1:3 nearest-neighbour matching) to those without a GP-HA within 12 months of RACF entry. Government-subsidised all-cause healthcare services use (hospitalisations, emergency-department (ED) visits, Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) subsidised health services and medications) and average costs over a one-year follow-up period were compared between the cohorts using Welch’s t-tests.
[Results:] 17,037 residents with GP-HAs were matched to 18,113 without GP-HAs. Compared to residents with GP-HAs, those without incurred significantly higher health services costs ($8,910, 95%CI $8,682-$9,138 versus $7,273, 95%CI $7,064-$7,483; P<0.001). When stratified by services type, residents without GP-HAs incurred higher hospitalisation costs ($6,530, 95%CI $6,314-$6,747 versus $5,427, 95%CI $5,182-$5,672), ED costs ($1,001, 95%CI $977-$1,023 versus $835, 95%CI $813-$875) and MBS-subsided health costs ($1,001, 95%CI $980-$1,022 vs $892, 95%CI $813-$857) than those who had GP-HAs (all P<0.001).
[Conclusions:] GP-HA was associated with lower overall healthcare costs, suggesting it is a low cost intervention that could reduce the need for additional downstream healthcare use and contribute to health system costs savings.