Patient, family and productivity costs of end-stage renal disease in the Netherlands; exposing non-healthcare related costs.

By exposing patient, family and productivity costs, our study revealed that dialysis and transplantation are not only costly within the healthcare system, but also incur high non-healthcare costs (18-23% resp. 35% of the total societal costs). It is important to reveal these types of non-healthcare costs in order to understand the full burden of ESRD for society and the potential impact of new therapies.