{"id":8028,"date":"2011-04-26T14:25:28","date_gmt":"2011-04-26T18:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/?p=8028"},"modified":"2011-07-19T17:44:26","modified_gmt":"2011-07-19T21:44:26","slug":"drug-eluting-stents-add-1-5-billion-per-year-to-medicare-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/2011\/04\/26\/drug-eluting-stents-add-1-5-billion-per-year-to-medicare-costs\/","title":{"rendered":"Drug-Eluting Stents Add Nearly $1.6 Billion per Year to Medicare Costs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Drug-eluting stents (DESs) cost Medicare an additional $1.57 billion  per year, <a href=\"http:\/\/archinte.ama-assn.org\/cgi\/content\/full\/archinternmed.2011.141\">according  to a study published online in the <em>Archives of Internal Medicine<\/em>.<\/a> Using a random sample of Medicare beneficiaries, Peter Groeneveld and  colleagues compared annual costs for patients with coronary artery  disease in 2002 (the year before DESs were introduced) with costs from 2002 through 2006.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers then calculated the  difference in national expenditures attributable to DESs and found that  for each CAD patient (whether or not they received a DES),\u00a0 DESs were  associated with a:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>$657 cost increase in patients with acute MI,<\/li>\n<li>$999 increase in patients with noninfarct ACS,<\/li>\n<li>$146  increase in\u00a0 patients without any ACS.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On a national level,  the annual increase in Medicare costs attributable to DESs totaled $1.57  billion:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>$236 million for acute MI,<\/li>\n<li>$269 million for  noninfarct ACS,<\/li>\n<li>$1.067 billion for non-ACS CAD.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Because  patients without ACS were by far the largest population, the  researchers noted that this group accounted for more than two-thirds  (68%) of the increase in cost, &#8220;suggesting that DES use among patients  without ACS was particularly cost amplifying (ie, DES introduction  changed patterns of care for patients without ACS in a more costly  manner than for patients with ACS).&#8221; The researchers commented: &#8220;This is  troubling, since the limited efficacy of percutaneous coronary  intervention among patients with ACS, whether or not DESs are used,  would not justify sizeable DES-related cost increases among patients  without ACS.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In an editor&#8217;s note, Rita Redberg wrote that &#8220;it is  time to clearly define what the value of this extraordinary investment  has been in terms of patient benefits and study the harms and determine  if we are getting good value for this outlay.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Drug-eluting stents (DESs) cost Medicare an additional $1.57 billion per year, according to a study published online in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Using a random sample of Medicare beneficiaries, Peter Groeneveld and colleagues compared annual costs for patients with coronary artery disease in 2002 (the year before DESs were introduced) with costs from 2002 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[820,821,474],"class_list":["post-8028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interventional-cardiology","tag-dess","tag-drug-eluting-stents","tag-medicare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}