Estimating Surgical Procedure Times Using Anesthesia Billing Data and Operating Room Records.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

The median time required to perform a surgical procedure is important in determining payment under Medicare's physician fee schedule. Prior studies have demonstrated that the current methodology of using physician surveys to determine surgical times results in overstated times. To measure surgical times more accurately, we developed and validated a methodology using available data from anesthesia billing data and operating room (OR) records.

Data sources

We estimated surgical times using Medicare 2011 anesthesia claims and New York Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System 2011 OR times. Estimated times were validated using data from the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program. We compared our time estimates to those used by Medicare in the fee sched

SUBMITTER: Burgette LF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5264104 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature