Hospital costs for vitreoretinal surgery vary widely among regions
NEW YORK — A targeted literature search of published papers showed great variation of hospital costs for vitreoretinal surgery between Europe and Asia.
The study was presented in a poster by Hasan Cetin, MD, and co-authors at the American Society of Retina Specialists annual meeting. Five articles were included, which reported the costs of 51 hospitals in five countries: Italy, England, Norway, Greece and Indonesia. Costs were classified as pre-surgery, surgery-specific, post-surgery and overall costs, representing the sum of costs for the diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of patients.
Large differences in cost were observed between Europe and Asia. “The surgery-specific cost of vitrectomy was roughly 8 to 15 times higher in Italy than in Indonesia. The minimum reported overall costs for vitrectomy were from Indonesia ($233.71), compared to a maximum overall cost reported from England ($2,584.99),” the authors wrote. For Greece, the overall reported cost was nearly half ($1,352.85) as compared with England.
The authors advocated the need for further research on hospital costs in other countries, including the U.S.
“Increased publication of U.S.-based and other country-based cost assessments would be important in the future to help provide benchmarks for the critical value of vitreoretinal surgery,” they wrote.
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Cetin H, et al. Global evaluation of hospital-based care delivery costs associated with vitreoretinal surgeries: A targeted literature review. Presented at: American Society of Retina Specialists annual meeting; July 13-16, 2022; New York.
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