by
Carol Ko, Staff Writer | March 21, 2013
Study author Dr. Andrew Epstein
from the University of Pennsylvania.
Six minimally invasive procedures could save billions of dollars, according to a study published Wednesday in JAMA Surgery.
Led by study author Dr. Andrew Epstein, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania investigated insurance claims data in 2009 from 322,000 patients to calculate the potential cost savings of six new surgical techniques, including uterine fibroid resection and coronary revascularization.
Had these minimally invasive techniques been used in 2009 in place of traditional surgery, it could have resulted in $14 billion in health care cost savings, according to the study.
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Though previous studies have shown minimally invasive techniques may lower total health care costs, very few studies have examined their financial impact on the workplace.
The study focused on adults aged 18 to 64 years, zeroing-in on total health care spending that included health care costs as well as days absent from work.
According to Epstein, the team chose to focus on the 18-64 year old population intentionally to contrast with prior work that generally looked at the elderly Medicare population. "We wanted to look both at direct medical costs [and] also workplace productivity issues," he told DOTmed News.
The results weren't entirely a surprise to the research team, since previous data showed that patients undergoing minimally invasive procedures averaged lower lengths of stay at hospitals. However, they were also surprised at how large the joint effect was, said Epstein.
Another surprising finding was that three out of the six minimally invasive techniques incurred less health care spending during and after surgery — a finding that runs counter to many concerns around the high cost of these procedures. "It really depends on what the new technology is replacing," said Epstein.
In particular, the study found the most dramatic difference between less-invasive coronary revascularization and its traditional surgical counterpart, with a cost gap of $30,850 and 37.7 fewer days per procedure.
"I think the takeaway here is to comprehensively evaluate the value of new technology — due to a lack of available data on these topics these issues have been largely ignored," said Epstein.
