Health system expenditure 2023-2024 (AIHW)

In 2023-2024, the expenditure for asthma was an estimated $1.28 billion spent on the treatment and management of asthma (out of $180.4 billion total spending on disease and injury and $98 billion spent on chronic conditions, and $5.77 billion spent on respiratory disease in 2023-2024), making asthma the third most costly respiratory condition (after COPD and upper respiratory conditions).(ref 1)

This is an increase from $1,192 million in 2022-23 and $852 million in 2020-21 (ref 2, 3)

The 1.3 billion spent on asthma represents:(ref 4)

• 0.7% of health system expenditure allocated by disease
• 22% of all respiratory condition expenditure

Asthma expenditure repartition: (ref 4)

• about 20% of asthma expenditure was spent on children under 15 years
• 58% was spent on females , 42% on males, and 0.3% was unattributed to any sex
• spending per case was higher for females vs males ($440 vs $390 per case)
• almost half (43%) of asthma spending was attributed to the PBS ($180 per case), followed by general practitioner services, 16% of asthma spending ($68 per case)

Asthma expenditure in 2023-24 included (ref1):

• $549 million spent on pharmaceuticals
• $210 million spent on GP
• $166 million spent on public hospital admissions
• $146 million spent on public hospital EDs
• $104 million spent on public hospital outpatient services

Asthma spending breakdown (Fig 5, ref 4):

Asthma expenditure was spent as follows: (ref 4)

• 61% ($780.8 million) on Primary healthcare, which is about 2.2 times the primary healthcare proportion average spent for all disease groups: this included 43% spent on PBS benefits, which is 3.6 times higher than the proportion of PBS spending for all diseases groups (12%)
• 33% for Hospital services (1.9 times lower that the 63% hospital proportion average for all disease groups), however the ED proportion was especially large for asthma (11%), 2.2 times higher than the average for all disease groups (5%)
• referred medical services (5.8%) was lower than the average proportion for all disease group (9.0%)

Trends over time (ref 4):

• asthma expenditure has increased from $0.7 billion to $1.3 billion between 2013-14 and 2023-24 (in current prices – unadjusted for inflation)
• after adjusting for inflation, real expenditure on asthma grew $261 million (constant prices) between 2013-14 and 2023-24
• after adjusting for inflation, average health spending on asthma per case remained stable between 2015–16 ($415) and 2023–24 ($420)

Burden of disease summary (Fig 8, ref 1):

Spending on asthma by jurisdictions (ref 1):

• ACT: $25.04 million
• NSW: $402.83 million
• NT: $12.78 million
• QLD: $254.19 million
• SA: $94.56 million
• TAS: $31.84 million
• VIC: $335.08 million
• WA: $126.12 million