IMPLANT COSTS – A HEALTH CARE SECRET (Orthopedics This Week)
How much does a new hip cost? The doctors who implant them do not know, writes Jenny Gold in Kaiser Health News. According to a survey of 503 physicians at seven major academic medical centers published this week inHealth Affairs, they were able to correctly estimate the cost of a device only 21% of the time. Their estimates ranged from 1.8% of the actual price to 24.6 times the cost. Guesses within 20% of the actual cost were ranked as correct.
The survey found that residents were even worse than surgeons at estimating costs. Residents were correct only 17% of the time. Gold reported that the researchers could not release the actual costs of the implant devices because they had signed nondisclosure agreements with the hospitals.
According to Gold, Medicare spends about $20 billion each year on implantable medical devices—nearly half of it for orthopedic procedures. As the population ages that number is only going to go up, which will have a bigger and bigger impact on the nation’s healthcare spending.
“In orthopedic surgery, we’re never told how much things cost. We never see the cost displayed anywhere, and even if you ...
