Understanding Health Economics in Spine Surgery

The United States has faced substantial increases in health-care expenditure, with specifically large increases in spine surgery costs.

Many different formulas are utilized to determine value in spine surgery, including cost- benefit analyses, cost-effectiveness analyses, and cost-utility analyses, with the overall determination of value being quality/cost.

Quality often is calculated indirectly using either process measures or outcome measures and represents the potential benefit of a given intervention, usually over a specific time period to yield quality-adjusted life years.

Costs are particularly difficult to calculate given the interhospital, regional, national, and global variability, as well as indirect costs of an intervention, and many different methods are utilized to estimate costs.

Spine surgeons should be familiar with the elements that compose cost-effectiveness and their potential shortcomings in order for providers and health-care policy makers to identify the highest-quality studies and interventions that provide the greatest benefit to patients.