Kern Singh, MD, co-founder of the Minimally Invasive Spine Institute at Rush in Chicago, presented a paper analyzing Medicare beneficiaries who underwent lumbar discectomies at the Society of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery Global Forum 2014.
There were 251 primary one and two-level minimally invasive lumbar discectomies performed during the study period—2009 to 2013. There were 19 Medicare patients in the study group, or 7.6 percent of the patients.
The researchers found:
1. Medicare patients were older on average and had a higher comorbidity burden. The average age of the Medicare patient undergoing MIS lumbar discectomy was 61.6 years old, compared with 40.6 years old among the non-Medicare patients.
The comorbidity burden was 3.56 for the Medicare patients and 1.15 for the non-Medicare patients.
2. The Medicare group reported longer operative times—50.6 minutes on average—compared with the non-Medicare group—39.5 minutes on average.
3. The length of stay at the hospital was 26.9 hours for the Medicare patients and 12.9 hours for the non-Medicare patients.
4. None of the non-Medicare patients reported in-hospital medical complications; however, 5.3 percent of the Medicare patients reported medical complications while in the hospital.
5. The postoperative visual analog scale scores and readmission rates were similar between the two groups. Both Medicare and non-Medicare patients also reported a similar rate of re-herniation and revision operations.
"Despite the increased hospitalization resource utilization, Medicare patients who underwent an MIS lumbar discectomy demonstrated significant improvements in pain that were comparable to that of the non-MC cohort, without an increased risk of re-herniation or re-operation," concluded the study authors.