A new study published in Spine examines trends in cervical spine surgery utilization and cost.
The study authors examined 419,830 patients who underwent cervical spine surgery for degenerative conditions from 2001 to 2013. The researchers pulled data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample database. The study authors found:
1. Eighty percent of the surgeries were anterior fusions.
2. The rate of cervical spine surgery decreased from 75.34 per 100,000 adults in 2001 to 72.20 per 100,000 adults in 2013.
3. The inflation-adjusted costs increased 64 percent from $11,799 in 2001 to $19,379 in 2013.
4. The factors associated with higher cost include:
• Older age
• Male gender
• Non-white race
• Private insurance
• Greater mortality risk
• Severity of injury
• Longer length of stay
5. Geographic location made a difference; hospitals in the Western U.S. had 27 percent higher costs than hospitals in the Northeast. The difference in cost by geographic location was significant even after controlling for patient and hospital factors such as the wage index.