More surgery in December among US patients with commercial insurance is offset by unrelated but lesser surgery among patients with Medicare insurance

Abstract

Study Objective: Evaluate whether there is more surgery (in the US State of Florida) at the end of the year, specifically among patients with commercial insurance. Design: Observational cohort study. Setting: The 712 facilities in Florida that performed inpatient or outpatient elective surgery from January 2010 through December 2019. Results: Among patients with commercial insurance, December had more cases than November (1.108 [1.092-1.125]) or January (1.257 [1.229-1.286]). In contrast, among patients with Medicare insurance (traditional or managed care), December had fewer cases than November (ratio 0.917 [99% confidence interval 0.904-0.930]) or January (0.823 [0.807-0.839]) of the same year. Summing among all cases, December did not have more cases than November (ratio 1.003 [0.992-1.014]) or January (0.998 [0.984-1.013]). Comparing December versus November (January)

Patients Undergoing Elective Inpatient Major Therapeutic Procedures in Florida Had No Significant Change in Hospital Mortality or Mortality-Related Comorbidities Between 2007 and 2019

“…2 In the current study, we used 12 years of inpatient data (starting with quarter 4 of 2007) from every nonfederal hospital in Florida. Being interested primarily in surgical patients receiving care by anesthesia practitioners, [3][4][5][6][7][8] we focused on inpatient major therapeutic surgical procedures (ie, with a length of stay ≥2 days). We excluded ambulatory surgery or minor therapeutic or diagnostic procedures for several reasons.…”