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Hospital outpatient surgical procedures increasing
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SDI, a health care market insight and analytics firm, reported that the number of hospital outpatient surgical visits increased 4.5% in 2009 compared with 2008. The number of hospital inpatient visits with surgical procedures, however, remained relatively unchanged in 2009, according to an SDI press release.
From 2006 through 2009, the number of hospitals in the United States grew less than 1%, SDI reported. The number of surgery centers, though, experienced double-digit growth at 17% during this same time period.
“The increase in surgeries where the patient is in and out of a hospital within a day, as well as the growth in the number of outpatient surgery centers, is due in part to payers’ increased awareness of costs and a desire to reduce them,” Joe Priest, SDI vice president of hospital, payer, and government services, noted in the release. “Because overnight stays are expensive, payers have determined that fewer surgical procedures require postoperative recovery in a hospital. This fact, combined with a growing and aging population, is driving the growth in the utility of smaller, specialized treatment centers.”