Thursday, January 9, 2014

The implementation of the national expansion of health insurance could mean more discretionary surgeries

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The implementation of the national expansion of health insurance could mean more discretionary surgeries -

Bottom Line: full implementation (ACA) of affordable care Act extension of national health insurance could cause much more discretionary surgical procedures in the coming years depending on how the use has changed after insurance reform earlier in Massachusetts

Author: .. Ellimoottil Chandy, MD, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and colleagues

Background: the potential effect of ABA on surgical care are not well known . The authors examined the possible effect by analyzing the expansion of the Massachusetts insurance and the use of discretionary and non-discretionary surgical procedures

How the study was conducted. The authors used inpatient databases of the State of Massachusetts and two control states (New Jersey and New York) to identify adults who have undergone discretionary procedures (eg elective procedures such as joint replacements and back surgery) and non-discretionary procedures (eg, cancer surgery and hip fracture repair) from 03 to 2010. the transitional insurance reform point was in July 07 .

Results: A total of 836.311 surgeries were identified during the study period. the expansion of the insurance was associated with an increase of 9.3 percent in discretionary surgery in Massachusetts and decreased 4.5 percent in non-discretionary surgery. The authors believe the ACA could give additional discretionary 465.934 surgeries in 2017.

Discussion: "Our collective results suggest that the expansion of the insurance leads to greater use of discretionary hospital procedures that are often performed to improve the quality of life rather than to immediately treat life-threatening conditions. in the future, research in this area should focus on whether increased use of these procedures is a response to the need or changes in unmet treatment thresholds driven by patients, providers, or a combination of both. "


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