Bariatric surgery doesnt curtail long-term costs

According to the researchers, though bariatric surgery is the most effective way to induce weight loss in individuals who are severely obese, the related health care expenditure trends have not been thoroughly investigated.

Researchers highlighted that investigating these trends are important, because as demand for weight loss surgery increases, so does the number of non-white, older and male patients with obesity-related diseases.

The Study
In order to compare health care costs three years before and after bariatric procedures, Matthew L. Maciejewski, Ph.D., of the Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care, Durham VA Medical Center, North Carolina, and team examined healthcare spending for about 1,700 veterans, all with a body mass index of at least 35 - the equivalent of a six-foot person weighing 258 pounds.

Most patients were men and about 50 years old, on average. Between 2000 and 2006, half of those people had bariatric surgery at one of 12 different VA centers; the others didn't undergo surgery.

The Study Results

The study revealed that in the six months time period which led up to the procedures, healthcare spending was over $30,000 among people preparing for surgery. Most of the additional spending, about $27,000 was on the surgery itself and associated hospital admission.

In comparison, less than $5,000 was spent during the same period by those not getting the operation. That average six-month healthcare cost held steady for the next three years among veterans who hadn't undergone surgery and fell to a similar level, but not any lower, among those who'd had a weight-loss procedure.

"That's an important finding, but you want to balance it with some measure of the benefits," said Thomas Hoerger, a health economist who has studied bariatric surgery at the scientific institute RTI in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, but wasn't involved in the new study.

The researchers stated; "These results are notable because they contrast with results from several prior observational studies that found expenditures among post-surgical cases to be lower than those of nonsurgical controls two to four years after the procedures, which can be explained by important differences in the populations examined and the methods of analysis."

The study was reported in the journal Archives of Surgery.

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