Are We Pricing Ourselves Out of the Market in Bariatric Surgery?
- نوع فایل : کتاب
- زبان : انگلیسی
- مؤلف : Kenneth B. Jones Jr.
- چاپ و سال / کشور: 2011
Description
In my ASMBS presidential address, in Las Vegas, 2002, I emphasized that we were at a crossroads relative to the safety and effectiveness of the laparoscopic approach to our science. No doubt, the popularity of bariatric surgery has mushroomed because of this “less invasive” approach as myriads of studies have confirmed its safety and effectiveness relative to the “open” approach, always ignoring the gorilla in the room: COST. This paper has confirmed that open Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (ORYGB) can be done for less than US $ 18–19,000, when the average USA cost for a laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (LRYGB) as well as Lap-Band costs an average of US $37,000. Or, if we spend US $3.7 billion to do 100,000 LRYBGs, and we could accomplish the same with equal or better outcomes for less than US $2.0 billion, surely our credibility would be greatly enhanced in the eyes of the third-party payers. This is a bargain comparable to lap choles, colon resections, mastectomies, and many other lifesaving or life-enhancing procedures. If our costs did not continue to rise with the popularity of our surgery, then our arguments for curing DM II, as well as greatly impacting a plethora of other obesity-related diseases, would be much more acceptable.
OBES SURG (2011) 21:928–929 DOI 10.1007/s11695-011-0395-0 Published online: 12 April 2011
