RT Journal
A1 Maciejewski ML, Livingston EH, Smith VA, Kahwati LC, Henderson WG, Arterburn DE
T1 HEalth expenditures among high-risk patients after gastric bypass and matched controls
JF Archives of Surgery
JO Archives of Surgery
YR 2012
FD July 1
VO 147
IS 7
SP 633
OP 640
DO 10.1001/archsurg.2012.818
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archsurg.2012.818
AB 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.