Cost Effectiveness of Music Therapy
Music Therapy is not only an innovative and high quality service, but is also cost effective.
In this day and age, the first item a business considers with a new program is the $ amount. Will it fit into the budget? Where will the funds come from to pay for this program? For many companies, including those who are state funded, non profit, for profit, those who are well established and those who are brand new, hiring new people and starting new programs is simply not an option until it fits into the budget.
Music Therapists can talk all day long about the patient benefits and high quality of innovative care that will come from a music therapy program. While that’s all well and good, it doesn’t mean much if the money is not there to pay for it.
But what if music therapy could save you money? And what if it saved money while increasing the quality of care?
It can happen. It does happen. And we have a growing body of research to demonstrate how. How does music therapy impact the bottom line for a healthcare facility? How does it save money while improving patient outcomes at the same time?
Here are 4 studies that support the cost benefits of music therapy:
NICU MUSIC THERAPY CUTS AN AVERAGE OF $10,000 OFF COSTS OF A NICU STAY ($2,000/DAY)
Powers Device Technologies Case Study (2011).
- The Pacifier Activated Lullaby (PAL) has shown an average 5 day reduction in the length of stay for NICU infants. This translates into a cost savings of $10,000 ($2,000 day) per infant for the hospital.
MUSIC THERAPY REDUCES COST PER PATIENT IN HOSPICE MUSIC THERAPY BY $2,984
- In this small study, the total cost per patients in music therapy was $10,659 and $13,643 for standard care patients, resulting in a cost savings of $2,984. The music therapy program cost $3,615, yielding a cost benefit ratio of 0.83. When using cost per patient day, the cost benefit ratio is 0.95
- The hospice administrator viewed using an MT-BC as a strong point and critical to the program’s success, a view supported in the literature.
- Evidence exists that MT may improve risk management for the hospice. Agitation and restlessness are leading causes of patient falls and staff injuries (Sung & Chang, 2005; van Doorn et al., 2003); consequently, one can argue that MT may reduce the number of falls and injuries.
- 70% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the MT program increased their job satisfaction, and 80% of the respondents felt that knowing that hospice paid for the MT program increased their commitment to the agency.
PARTNERS ENJOY 70.1% IN TOTAL SAVINGS (or $17,247) AS A RESULT OF MUSIC THERAPY PROGRAM
- For the total expenditure of $57,600, the Florida State University affiliated music therapy/Arts in Medicine protocol in the Tallahassee Memorial Hospital reveal a total outlay for two partners of $17,247, or 70.1% of total savings.
MUSIC THERAPY FOR PROCEDURAL SUPPORT CUTS COST OF ECHOCARDIOGRAM IN CHILDREN BY $74.24 PER PROCEDURE
- The application of music therapy had 100% success rate of eliminating the need for sedation for pediatric patients receiving EEG, and 80.7% success rate for pediatric CT scan without sedation, and a 94.1% success rate for all other procedures.
- The cost analysis resulted in that the total cost per patient with music therapy was $13.21 and $87.45 for patients without music therapy, which results in a net savings of $74.24 (85%).
- The project resulted in saving 184 RN-hours for other duties, which addresses the concern of a nationwide shortage on RNs.
Information obtained from www.musictherapy.org through the American Music Therapy Association
