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Hospital charges attributable to bronchoscopy-related complications in outpatients

H G Colt¹, T Matsuo

¹Interventional Pulmonary Section, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Division, University of California-La Jolla Medical Center, 92037-7372, USA. hcolt@ucsd.edu

Respiration; International Review of Thoracic Diseases

|February 27, 2001

Abstract

Background:

Despite literature pertaining to algorithms of care, operating room charges and other financial management issues in medicine, there is a paucity of data pertaining to the fiscal consequences of bronchoscopic practice.

Objective:

To identify hospital charges directly attributable to bronchoscopy-related complications in outpatients.

Methods:

A prospective analysis of outpatient bronchoscopy-related complications, clinical outcomes and hospital charges resulting directly from procedure-related adverse events in 660 consecutive outpatients undergoing flexible fiberoptic bronchoscopy (FFB) during a period of 30 consecutive months at the University of California, San Diego Medical Center, was performed.

Results:

Altogether, 1,009 consecutive outpatient FFBs were performed on 660 patients (mean age 58 years, range 16-91 years). Fifty adverse events (5% of all procedures) occurred in 44 patients. These were bronchospasm (31 cases), hemoptysis (5 cases), pneumothorax (3 cases), nausea/vomiting (3 cases), hypoxemia (2 cases), seizure (2 cases), laryngeal spasm (2 cases), chills/fever (1 case) and a vasovagal episode (1 case). Prolonged length of stay in the postprocedure recovery area on 22 occasions (2.2% of all procedures) resulted in USD 6,996 in additional hospital charges. Hospitalization was necessary in only 5 instances (0.5% of all procedures), but resulted in USD 34,500 in additional charges (range for the 5 patients, USD 2,000-11,000) that were directly attributable to a procedure-related complication.

Conclusion:

Hospital charges directly attributable to outpatient flexible bronchoscopy-related complications are minimal, but escalate considerably if hospitalization becomes necessary.

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