Expenditure on chronic kidney disease

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In 2019-20, $1.8 billion (1.3% of total allocated health expenditure) was attributed to CKD.

What is expenditure on chronic kidney disease?

This web page provides recent data on health care expenditure on chronic kidney disease (CKD), with details by type of condition, health care service, age group, and sex.

It includes expenditure by the Australian Government; state, territory, and local governments; and the non-government sector (including private health insurance and individual contributions).

These estimates report direct, allocated and recurrent expenditure only. They do not account for the total amount spent on kidney health.

Further information on how the estimates were derived is available from the Disease expenditure in Australia web report.

How much is spent on chronic kidney disease?

In 2019–20, an estimated 1.3% of total allocated expenditure in the Australian health system ($1.8 billion) was attributed to chronic kidney disease (AIHW 2022a).

The average health system spending per case of CKD in 2018–19 was $2,326 (males $3,012, females $1,727) (AIHW 2022b).

Where is the money spent?

In 2019–20, most allocated CKD expenditure (88% or $1.6 billion) was spent on hospital services. This included expenditure on public hospital admitted patients ($1.1 billion), private hospital services ($325 million), public hospital outpatients ($153 million) and public hospital emergency departments ($8.8 million).

Another 5% ($83 million) related to non-hospital medical services (primary care), comprising general practitioner services ($35 million), specialist services ($21 million), medical imaging ($9.7 million), pathology ($16 million) and allied health and other services ($0.5 million).

A small amount of CKD expenditure (0.4% or $6.5 million) was for dental services.

The remaining 7% ($120 million) was spent on prescription pharmaceuticals subsidised under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) (Figure 1). 

Figure 1: Health system expenditure on chronic kidney disease, by area of expenditure, 2019–20

The bar chart shows areas of expenditure on chronic kidney disease in 2019–20. The largest area of expenditure was ‘public hospital admitted patient’ ($1.1 billion), followed by private hospital services, public hospital outpatient services, Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme services, general practitioner services and specialist services.

Who is the money spent on?

Expenditure on CKD in 2019–20 was low among young people but rose sharply from ages 40–44, to be highest among men and women aged 70–74 (Figure 2).

Expenditure on CKD was higher among males than females at all ages. From ages 70–74 to age 85 and over, expenditure for men was 1.6 times as high as that for women.

Most of this difference related to expenditure on hospital services, where a total of
$941 million was spent on males, compared with $616 million on females.

Expenditure on non-hospital medical services (primary care) was similar among males and females ($43 million and $40 million, respectively).

Expenditure on prescription pharmaceuticals was higher among males ($68 million) than females ($51 million).

Figure 2: Health system expenditure on chronic kidney disease, by age and sex, 2019–20

The bar chart shows expenditure on chronic kidney disease in 2019–20 by age and sex. The overall expense of CKD increased with age to 70–74 years ($248 million). Expenditure was higher for males than females across all age groups.

References

AIHW (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare) (2022a) Disease expenditure in Australia 2019–20, AIHW, Australian Government, accessed 14 March 2023.

AIHW (2022b) Health system spending per case of disease and for certain risk factors, AIHW, Australian Government, accessed 7 April 2022.