Patient Health Status and Costs in Heart Failure

BACKGROUND: Although a variety of prognostic tools have been shown to predict rehospitalization and mortality in heart failure patients, their utility in assessing future costs is less clear. We assessed whether health status assessment with the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ) predicts future costs in stable heart failure outpatients with left ventricular dysfunction after myocardial infarction. METHODS AND RESULTS: We evaluated 12-month cost utilization data from 1516 heart failure outpatients enrolled in the Quality-of-Life Substudy of the Eplerenone Post-Myocardial Infarction Heart Failure Efficacy and Survival Study (EPHESUS). Multivariable hierarchical models assessed whether the KCCQ (categorized as 0 to or =75), whereas 510 (33. 6%), 262 (17. 3%), and 59 (3. 9%) had fair (KCCQ, 50 to 74), poor (KCCQ, 25 to 49), and the worst (KCCQ <25) health status, respectively. After multivariable adjustment, compared with patients with good health status, patients with fair health status incurred incremental 1-year costs of 1520 (cost ratio, 1. 23; 95% confidence interval, 1. 05 to 1. 43), whereas patients with poor and the worst health status incurred incremental 1-year costs of 4265 (cost ratio, 1. 63; 95% confidence interval, 1. 34 to 1. 99) and 8999 (cost ratio, 2. 34; 95% confidence interval, 1. 62 to 3. 38), respectively (P<0. 0001 for association with KCCQ). Further adjustment for New York Heart Association class led to only partial attenuation of this relationship (P=0. 0002). CONCLUSIONS: Health status assessment predicts resource use and costs over the next year in stable heart failure outpatients with left ventricular dysfunction after myocardial infarction.