Home 5 Clinical Diagnostics Insider 5 Routine, PreoOp Testing Costlier for Medicare Than Previously Thought

Routine, PreoOp Testing Costlier for Medicare Than Previously Thought

by | Feb 2, 2018 | Clinical Diagnostics Insider, Diagnostic Testing and Emerging Technologies, Testing Trends-dtet

The traditional 30-day window prior to the date of surgery does not always capture routine preoperative medical testing that occurs when surgery is first contemplated. When considering Medicare patients whose surgery occurs more than 30 days after initially contemplated, routine preoperative medical testing is more prevalent and more costly than previously reported, according to a study published Jan. 18 in JAMA Ophthalmology. This study was limited to cataract surgery, but the findings likely applicable for other ambulatory procedures, the authors say. "Prior studies on routine preoperative testing, which usually highlight the testing that occurs during a 30-day preoperative window, have not accounted for the extended preoperative testing period that begins when the decision is first made to operate," write the authors led by Catherine Chen, M.D., from University of California, San Francisco. "There are likely to be more patients undergoing routine preoperative testing before low-risk surgical procedures similar to cataract surgery than previously recognized, despite the existence of guidelines recommending against such interventions." The researchers assessed preoperative care in a sample of 440,857 Medicare beneficiaries (mean age, 7.1 years) who underwent ambulatory cataract surgery in 2011. Ocular biometry, a diagnostic test to determine the required power of the intraocular lens […]

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