Abstract
Objective
To investigate the temporal relationship of hospital charges relative to recorded
costs for surgical episodes of care.
Patients and Methods
This retrospective cohort study selected individuals who underwent any of 8 index
urologic surgical procedures at 392 unique institutions from January 1, 2005, through
December 31, 2015. For each surgical encounter, cost and charge data reported by hospitals
were extracted and adjusted to 2016 US dollars. Trend analysis and multivariable logistic
regression modeling were used to assess outcomes. The primary outcome was trend in
median charge and cost. Secondary outcomes consisted of hospital characteristics associated
with membership in the highest quartile of institutional charge-to-cost ratio.
Results
Cohort-level median cost per encounter trended down from $6824 in 2005 to $5586 in
2015 (P for trend<.001), and charges increased from $20,210 to $25,773 during the same period
(P for trend<.001). Hospitals in the highest quartile of institutional charge-to-cost
ratio were more likely to be safety net, nonteaching, urban, lower surgical volume,
smaller, and located outside the Midwest (P<.001 for each characteristic).
Conclusion
The pricing trends shown herein could indicate some success in cost-containment for
surgical episodes of care, although higher hospital charges may be increasingly used
to bolster reimbursement from third-party payers and to compensate for escalating
costs in other areas.
Abbreviations and Acronyms:
CCR (charge-to-cost ratio), CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services), TDABC (time-driven activity-based costing)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 09, 2019
Footnotes
For editorial comment, see page 946
Potential Competing Interests: The authors report no competing interests.
Identification
Copyright
© 2019 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research
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- Rising Health Care Charges: A Red Herring in a Value-Based Health Care World?Mayo Clinic ProceedingsVol. 94Issue 6
- PreviewIn this issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, through an analysis of urologic surgical episodes of care across 392 hospitals, McClintock et al1 found that although cost per hospital episode of care decreased 20% from 2005 to 2015, the charges for these episodes of care increased more than 25% during this same period. Hospitals with the highest charge to cost ratios were more likely to be safety net, nonteaching, urban, lower surgical volume, smaller, and located outside the Midwest. The methods used in this study meet the traditional criteria for internal validity.
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