Transportation cost of anticoagulation clinic visits in an urban setting.

BACKGROUND: Patients being managed on warfarin make frequent or regular visits to anticoagulation monitoring appointments. International studies have evaluated transportation cost and associated time related to anticoagulation clinic visits. To our knowledge, no studies have evaluated the cost of transportation to such clinic visits in the United States.
OBJECTIVE: To describe the methods of transportation and estimate the average total cost of transportation to and from an anticoagulation clinic in an urban setting.
METHODS: We prospectively conducted a survey of patients treated at the Harper Anticoagulation Clinic located in Detroit, Michigan, during November 2010. The survey was given to patients while waiting at their regularly scheduled clinic appointments and included questions regarding mode of transportation, distance traveled in miles, parking payment, and time missed from work for clinic appointments. The mean distance traveled was translated into cost assuming 50 cents per mile based on 2010 estimates by the Internal Revenue Service.
RESULTS: Sixty patients responded to the 11-item survey; response rates for individual items varied because participants were instructed to skip questions that did not pertain to them. Of the 47 participants responding to demographic questions, 70.2% were female, and 46.8% were older than 60 years. Transportation by private vehicle (80.0%), either driven by patients (41.7%) or someone else (38.3%), was the most common method reported. Use of private automobile translated into a cost of $11.19 per round trip. Other means of transportation identified include a ride from a medical transportation service (10.0%), bus (5.0%), walking (3.3%), and taxi (1.7%). The mean (SD) distance traveled to the clinic for all methods of transportation was 8.34 (7.7) miles. We estimated the average cost of round-trip transportation to be $10.78 weighted for all transportation modes. This is a direct nonmedical cost that is paid for by most patients out of pocket. However, 9 of 44 (20.5%) responded that their insurance plans provided at least some coverage for their rides to the anticoagulation clinic. Most participants stated that they did not take any time off work for clinic visits (88%) primarily because a large proportion of the study population was unemployed or retired.
CONCLUSION: The round-trip cost of transportation to an anticoagulation clinic in an urban setting in the United States may translate into a substantial expense, ranging from weekly appointments ($560 annually) to once monthly appointments ($130 annually).