After Medicare rule change, fewer facilities performed bariatric surgeries but outcomes improved

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-01/jaaj-amr011410.php

Public release date: 18-Jan-2010
Contact: John Murray
JAMA and Archives Journals
After Medicare rule change, fewer facilities performed bariatric surgeries but outcomes improved

Following a rule expanding coverage of weight-loss surgery under Medicare, bariatric procedures in the Medicare population were centralized to a smaller number of certified centers, were more likely to be minimally invasive and were associated with improved outcomes, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

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Although the number of bariatric surgeries performed remained approximately the same, the number of facilities performing them decreased from 60 to 45, reflecting a shift to high-volume, certified centers. Patients tend to do better when their procedures are performed at high-volume centers or when they receive laparoscopic bariatric surgery, which can only be performed at facilities certified by the ACS or ASMBS, the authors note.

"Although we only examined the Medicare beneficiaries population in this analysis, we suspect that the improvement in outcomes will also be extrapolated to the population that is not eligible for Medicare," they conclude.

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Various studies of different kinds of surgeries have found the same thing. Doctors and facilities who do more surgeries of a specific kind tend to have better outcomes.