An argument for one day follow-up in cancer care

Abstract

We wanted to assess the distribution of patients and to quantify the travel expenses for specialists’ consultation in cancer care. From 1st to 31st October 2018 specialists consulted 2856 with the malignant disease at University Hospital for Tumors. We looked at rectal cancer (C20) specifi cally and identifi ed 163 rectal cancer patients. Travel expenses are derived from the following:1,35 € per kilometer for patients outside of the city of Zagreb, as denoted by the county they live in, and minimal public transport fee for the patients residing in Zagreb (2,70 €). Cost of their return transport within Zagreb was 313,2 € while 21362,16 € costed the return transport to and from the hospital from outside of Zagreb. The average cost per patient per visit 132,98 €. An estimate for 2856 patients is 379784,22 €. Transport cost for a patient being consulted on cancer care is a substantial part of not recognized costs in system analysis. The process of assessing travel costs display the area of gravitation toward a cancer center. 36% of patients were from Zagreb.