Hospital quality, patient risk, and Medicare expenditures for cancer surgery

Surgical resection is a cornerstone of curative-intent therapy for patients with solid organ malignancies. With increasing attention paid to the costs of surgical care, there is a new focus on variations in the costs of cancer surgery. This study evaluated the potential interactive effect of hospital quality and patient risk on expenditures for cancer resections.

With 100% Medicare claim data for 2010-2013, patients aged 65 to 99 years who had undergone cancer resection were identified. Medicare payments were calculated for the surgical episode from the index admission through 30 days after discharge. Risk- and reliability-adjusted hospital rates of serious complications and mortality within 30 days of the index operation were assessed to categorize high- and low-quality hospitals.

There was no difference in patient characteristics between the highest and lowest quality hospitals. There were substantial increases in expenditures for procedures performed at the lowest quality hospitals for each procedure. Increased expenditures at the lowest quality hospitals were found for all patients, but they were highest for the highest risk patients. At low-quality hospitals, low-risk patients undergoing pancreatectomy had payments of $29,080, whereas high-risk patients had average payments of $62,687; this was a difference of $33,607 per patient episode.

Total episode expenditures for cancer resections were lower when care was delivered at low-complication, high-quality hospitals. Expenditure differences were particularly large for high-risk patients, and this suggests that the selective referral of high-risk patients to high-quality centers may be an effective strategy for optimizing value in cancer surgery. Cancer 2018;124:826-32. © 2017 American Cancer Society.