Spending and Out-of-Pocket Costs for Genital Gender-Affirming Surgery in the US.

ABSTRACT:

Importance

Genital gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is safe and offers substantial benefits to patients. Geographic accessibility and high out-of-pocket (OOP) costs reportedly hinder access; however, to date, this has not been thoroughly investigated at the national level.

Objective

To estimate OOP and total costs for GAS among commercially insured beneficiaries and assess whether costs differed between surgical procedures conducted in and outside the patient's state of residence.

Design, setting, and participants

This cross-sectional study used previously collected insurance data from the MarketScan Commercial Database (129 million patients) from January 1, 2007, to December 31, 2019. Vaginoplasties and phalloplasties were identified using diagnosis and procedure codes

SUBMITTER: Downing J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9260638 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature