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Updated: May 20, 2026
Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass Operation in Rats
Published on: June 11, 2012
Health expenditures among high-risk patients after gastric bypass and matched controls
Matthew L Maciejewski1, Edward H Livingston, Valerie A Smith
1Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care, Durham Veterans Affairs, Durham, NC 27705, USA. matthew.maciejewski@va.gov
Objective:
To determine whether bariatric surgery is associated with reduced health care expenditures in a multisite cohort of predominantly older male patients with a substantial disease burden.
Design:
Retrospective cohort study of bariatric surgery. Outpatient, inpatient, and overall health care expenditures within Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers were examined via generalized estimating equations in the propensity-matched cohorts.
Setting:
Bariatric surgery programs in VA medical centers.
Participants:
Eight hundred forty-seven veterans who were propensity matched to 847 nonsurgical control subjects from the same 12 VA medical centers.
Intervention:
Bariatric surgical procedures.
Main Outcome Measure:
Health expenditures through December 2006.
Results:
Outpatient, inpatient, and total expenditures trended higher for bariatric surgical cases in the 3 years leading up to the procedure and then converged back to the lower expenditure levels of nonsurgical controls in the 3 years after the procedure.
Conclusions:
Based on analyses of a cohort of predominantly older men, bariatric surgery does not appear to be associated with reduced health care expenditures 3 years after the procedure.
