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# Scottish AF patients never started on anticoagulants had three times the annual costs
- URL: https://www.coios.me/scottish-af-patients-never-started-on-anticoagulants-had/
- Published: 2026-10-03T13:10:56.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-03T17:30:56.000Z
- Description: In 47,427 Scots with incident atrial fibrillation and a CHA2DS2-VASc score of 2 or more, continuous oral anticoagulation was associated with annual healthcare costs of GBP 7,288 per patient against GBP 22,751 for those never started.
- Author: Daniel Ryan
- Tags: Weighing data and models, What linked data reveals, Heart and stroke, Health funding and inequalities, United Kingdom, #peer-reviewed, #refines, #item, #source-2026-09

A retrospective study linked Scottish inpatient, outpatient, prescribing and care-home records for 47,427 people with incident atrial fibrillation between 2010 and 2016, following them for five years and grouping them by oral anticoagulant exposure. Continuous therapy was associated with the lowest annual cost per patient (GBP 7,288), while never starting (GBP 22,751) and cessation (GBP 22,157) carried the highest, driven by inpatient and long-term care use. Costs were GBP 20,562 in the most deprived group against GBP 12,734 in the least.

*Why it is interesting: A monetary gradient on anticoagulant persistence and on deprivation in one national linked dataset, with groups defined after the fact so that confounding by frailty is hard to exclude.*

Source

[The European Journal of Health Economics, 30 September 2026](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-026-01988-3?ref=coios.me)

DOI

10.1007/s10198-026-01988-3

Type

Peer-reviewed article

Design

Retrospective linked-records cohort, 47,427 incident AF patients, Scotland 2010-2016, five-year follow-up, IPTW two-part cost model

Verdict

Refines prior evidence

Driver

[What linked data reveals](https://www.coios.me/d-linked-data/)

Driver

[Heart and stroke](https://www.coios.me/d-cardiovascular/)

Driver

[Health funding and inequalities](https://www.coios.me/d-health-inequality/)