THE ECONOMIC BURDEN OF TREATING NASOPHARYNGEAL CARCINOMA PATIENTS (NPC) USING THE MALAYSIAN DIAGNOSIS-RELATED GROUPS (MY-DRG) TARIFF AND CLINICAL FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH THE MY-DRG TARIFF BASED ON THE CASEMIX SYSTEM

Abstract

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), formerly known as lymphoepithelioma, is an undifferentiated squamous cell cancer that arises from the nasopharyngeal epithelium. The high cost of NPC treatment has become a burden on healthcare providers including the healthcare sector in Malaysia. The Malaysian Diagnosis-Related Groups (MY-DRG) is a casemix system designed to provide healthcare costing information for health managers and policymakers. The actual cost of treating NPC can be determined using the MY-DRG® Tariff. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the prevalence of NPC cases and the economic burden of treating NPC using the MY-DRG Tariff. It also sought to determine the associated factors of MY-DRG Tariff based on clinical criteria, namely length of stay, number of diseases, number of clinical procedures and disease severity among NPC patients at Hospital Pakar USM (HPUSM) from 2020 to 2022. This cross-sectional study was conducted using casemix data obtained from the Medical Record Department, HPUSM. The data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics (version 28.0). The prevalence of NPC cases from 2020 to 2022 was 0.024%, with a total of 35 cases reported. The average MY-DRG Tariff for NPC treatment was RM 8647.77. The number of diseases, number of procedures and disease severity were significantly associated with the MY-DRG Tariff (p-value<0.05). The findings from the study can serve as a baseline for future casemix studies aimed at improving clinical criteria to reduce hospital treatment costs.