In our December 10th email newsletter, the Healthcare Journal reported on a study that found your patients were paying more for health care, especially pharmaceuticals, in 2006 as compared with 1996 in real dollars.

This week, a new report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) found that hospital costs for surgeries and procedures have also increased (between 2004 and 2007). For example, chemotherapy costs for hospitals went up by a third, to $2.6 billion during that time.

In the Agency’s report, researchers Elizabeth Stranges, MS, C. Allison Russo, MPH, and Bernard Friedman, PhD, looked at the 10 procedures that showed the greatest cost increases between 2004 and 2007.

The researchers found that about three-quarters of the increase was caused by greater numbers of patients undergoing these procedures and the remaining quarter from higher costs per case treated.

The ten procedures with the largest increases in the study:

• Bone marrow transplants increased by 85% to $1.3 billion;
• Open surgery for noncancerous enlarged prostate—up 69% to $1 billion;
• Aortic valve resection or replacement—up 38.5% to $1.9 billion;
• Cancer chemotherapy—up 33% to $2.6 billion;
• Spinal fusion—up 29.5% to $8.9 billion;
• Lobectomy (a type of lung cancer surgery)—up 29% to $1.8 billion;
• Incision and drainage of skin and other tissues—up 29% to $1 billion;
• Knee surgery—up 27.5% to $9.2 billion;
• Nephrostomy (surgery to allow urine to pass through the kidneys)—up 25% to $683 million;
• Mastectomy (breast removal because of cancer)—up 24% to $660 million.

This data is from Procedures with the Most Rapidly Increasing Hospital Costs, 2004-2007 and can be accessed at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb82.jsp