Bariatric Surgery: Improves Health in a Cost Efficient Manner

Bariatric surgery has been said that it can pay for itself within a few years by helping to reduce insurance claims resulting from medical conditions that obese people can develop. While that might seem to be an overestimation, research shows that it is indeed correct, and that in most cases, surgical cost can be recovered within two to four years.

This study was funded by Johnson & Johnson's Ethicon Endo-Surgery Inc., which makes instruments for bariatric surgery, and published in the American Journal of Managed Care. The lead author of the study Pierre-Yves Cremieux, however, said that he devised the study before Ethicon made the offer to fund it, and the company did not have any influence on the research conducted.

The researchers compared the insurance claims for over 3,600 patients that have had bariatric surgery with those filed by the same number of morbidly obese people that did not have the surgery. Out of the patients that have had the surgery, the percentage that had hypertension, diabetes, or sleep apnea all showed a decrease after their operation. With the patients that did not have the surgery, however, their percentages for the same conditions either stayed the same or rose.

According to the study, the average monthly medical costs for the people who had the laparoscopic bariatric surgery were approximately $900 lower than those people who did not, roughly a year after the procedure.

Dr. Shikora stated, "Bariatric surgery is a unique field in that with one operation you can cure a wide range of different health conditions…. This paper demonstrated that you can do that and actually save money in this process."

This type of surgery aims to produce significant weight loss and involves an operation on the intestines or stomach. According to the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, it is estimated that 220,000 procedures will be performed this year, which is more than a tenfold increase since 1992.

Shikora stated that many physicians require a six-month doctor-supervised weight loss program, even though most patients have said they have tried every pill, diet plan, and weight loss program with no results. "Obesity is a disease, it's not just a choice or an eating affliction," he said. "It is a genetic disease, and I don't feel that the morbidly obese patient should be treated any differently than a patient with breast cancer, or HIV or other ailments."

Susan Pisano, which is a spokeswoman for the trade association America's Health Insurance Plans, said that cost is a factor for most insurers. She also said that their main concerns focus on the quality and safety issues like the experience of the surgeons that will be performing the operation.

The risk of someone dying from a weight-loss surgery has fallen below 1 percent within recent years. There has also been concern in this industry of performing surgery on patients that don't meet the National Institutes of Health guidelines for it. She stated that she thinks there had been concern about this being the first option and a silver bullet, as opposed to this option having a place in the treatment of people that are morbidly obese. However, she also stated that the insurance industry said it would consider this study, but she noted that this is only one study. "What you would want to do is be able to replicate those results in another study," she said.