Economic impacts of care by high-volume providers for non-curative esophagogastric cancer: a population-based analysis

Esophagogastric cancer (EGC) is one of the deadliest and costliest malignancies to treat. Care by high-volume providers can provide better outcomes for patients with EGC. Cost implications of volume-based cancer care are unclear. We examined the cost-effectiveness of care by high-volume medical oncology providers for non-curative management of EGC. We conducted a population-based cohort study of non-curative EGC over 2005–2017 by linking administrative datasets. High-volume was defined as ≥ 11 patients/provider/year. Healthcare costs ($USD/patient/month-survived) were computed from diagnosis to death or end of follow-up from the perspective of the healthcare system. Multivariable quantile regression examined the association between care by high-volume providers and costs. Sensitivity analyses were conducted by varying costing horizons and high-volume definitions. Among 7011 non-curative EGC patients, median overall survival was superior with care by high-volume providers with 7.0 (IQR 3.3–13.3) compared to 5.9 (IQR 2.6–12.1) months (p < 0.001) for low-volume providers. Median costs/patient/month-lived were lower for high-volume providers ($5518 vs. $5911; p < 0.001), owing to lower inpatient acute care costs, despite higher medication-associated and radiotherapy costs. Care by high-volume providers was independently associated with a reduction of $599 per patient/month-lived (95% confidence interval − 966 to − 331) compared to low-volume providers. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was − 393. Care by high-volume providers remained the dominant strategy when varying the costing horizon and the high-volume definition. Care by high-volume providers for non-curative EGC is associated with superior survival and lower healthcare costs, indicating a dominant strategy that may provide an opportunity to improve cost-effectiveness of care delivery.