Economic Evaluation of a Home-Based Age-Related Macular Degeneration Monitoring System.
2017 05 01
Journal Article
Authors:
Wittenborn, J.S.;
Clemons, T.;
Regillo, C.;
Rayess, N.;
Kruger, D.Liffmann;
Rein, D.
Secondary:
JAMA Ophthalmol
Volume:
135
Pagination:
452-459
Issue:
5
PMID:
28358948
DOI:
10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2017.0255
Keywords:
Aged; Choroidal neovascularization; Cost-Benefit Analysis; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Monitoring, Physiologic; Reproducibility of Results; Telemedicine; United States; visual acuity; Visual Fields; Wet Macular Degeneration
Abstract:
Background: Medicare recently approved coverage of home telemonitoring for early detection of incident choroidal neovascularization (CNV) among patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), but no economic evaluation has yet assessed its cost-effectiveness and budgetary impact.Objectives: To evaluate a home-based daily visual-field monitoring system using simulation methods and to apply the findings of the Home Monitoring of the Eye study to the US population at high risk for wet-form AMD.Design, Setting, and Participants: In this economic analysis, an evaluation of the potential cost, cost-effectiveness, and government budgetary impact of adoption of a home-based daily visual-field monitoring system among eligible Medicare patients was performed. Effectiveness and visual outcomes data from the Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2 Home Monitoring of the Eye study, treatment data from the Wills Eye Hospital Treat & Extend study, and AMD progression data from the Age-Related Eye Disease Study 1 were used to simulate the long-term effects of telemonitoring patients with CNV in one eye or large drusen and/or pigment abnormalities in both eyes. Univariate and probabilistic sensitivity analysis and an alternative scenario using the Treat & Extend study control group outcomes were used to examine uncertainty in these data and assumptions.Interventions: Home telemonitoring of patients with AMD for early detection of CNV vs usual care.Main Outcomes and Measures: Incremental cost-effectiveness ratio, net present value of lifetime societal costs, and 10-year nominal government expenditures.Result: Telemonitoring of patients with existing unilateral CNV or multiple bilateral risk factors for CNV (large drusen and retinal pigment abnormalities) incurs $907 (95% CI, -$6302 to $2809) in net lifetime societal costs, costs $1312 (95% CI, $222-$2848) per patient during 10 years from the federal government's perspective, and results in an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $35 663 (95% CI, cost savings to $235 613) per quality-adjusted life-year gained.Conclusions and Relevance: Home telemonitoring of patients with AMD who are at risk for CNV was cost-effective compared with scheduled examinations alone. Monitoring patients with existing CNV in one eye is cost saving, but monitoring is generally not cost-effective among patients with low risk of CNV, including those with no or few risk factors. With Medicare coverage, monitoring incurs budgetary expenditures for the government but is cost-saving for patients at high risk of AMD. Monitoring could be cost saving to society if monitoring reduced the frequency of scheduled examinations or led to a reduction of one or more injections of ranibizumab.
