J. M. Haglin2, A. E. Eltorai1, K. R. Richter2, A. H. Daniels1 1Brown University School Of Medicine,Providence, RI, USA 2Mayo Clinic School of Medicine,Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Introduction: A complete understanding of financial trends in general surgery is lacking, particularly regarding procedural reimbursement rates. An evaluation of such economic trends and changes in reimbursement rates in general surgery is important for the specialty’s financial health. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the monetary trends from 2000-2018 in Medicare reimbursement rates for the most common general surgery procedures.
Methods: The Physician Fee Schedule Look-Up Tool from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services was queried for each of the top 10 procedures in general surgery, and comprehensive reimbursement data was extracted from this database. The total raw percent change in Medicare reimbursement rate for each procedure from 2000 to 2018 was calculated and averaged. This was statistically compared to the total percent change in consumer price index (CPI) over the same time, where CPI is a measure of inflation. Based on CPI from each year, all data was corrected for inflation. All trend analysis was then performed using this adjusted data. Both average annual and total percentage change were calculated based on these adjusted trends, as well as R-squared for all procedures. Compound annual growth rate was calculated using the adjusted data.
Results: After adjusting all data for inflation, the reimbursement rate for all included procedures decreased by an average of 26.9% throughout the study period. During this time, the adjusted reimbursement rate decreased by an average of 1.6% each year with an average compound annual growth rate of -1.8%, indicating a steady decline in reimbursement rate in general surgery.
Conclusion: This is the first study to evaluate trends in Medicare reimbursement rates in general surgery. After adjusting for inflation, Medicare reimbursement rates in general surgery have steadily decreased from 2000 to 2018. It is important that these trends are understood and considered by surgeons, healthcare administrators, and policy-makers in order to develop and implement agreeable models of reimbursement while ensuring access to quality general surgery care in the United States.
