- Joined
- Oct 10, 2002
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Yes, it's true. The day has come when lap gastric bypass is now an outpatient procedure... at least in Texas. At Baylor Medical College in Dallas, they are now doing these procedures and sending 'em home within 23 hours...
This procedure now is the highest source of hospital revenue" at Baylor (according to an article in General Surgery News). Cha-ching.
As it stands now, I think that this move is completely financially driven. How many hospitals will have the courage/greed to discharge these patients the next morning is anyone's guess. I would hope that at least only high volume centers would consider this move.
What happens when the person goes home (could be 100 or more, but less than 150 miles from the hospital) and busts out an anastomotic leak? Or goes home and chugs a 2 liter of coke and gets an ischemic stomach?
This center has pretty low complication rates, and who knows what kind of selection was used... but they based their comlication rates on 1000 lap gastric bypass surgeries done at their institution. I wonder how many boards of local hospitals are going to point to Baylor and think, "Well, there ya go, a nice safe, money-making way to treat all of our lap gastric bypass patients." Considering that a lot of patients at academic centers aren't well-insured, one wonders how many hospital administrations will push to have outpatient surgery just to cut losses on the un/poorly insured.
Let's hope that the field interprets Baylor's experience appropriately: If you want to get outpatient lap gastric bypass at Baylor, go for it.
This procedure now is the highest source of hospital revenue" at Baylor (according to an article in General Surgery News). Cha-ching.
As it stands now, I think that this move is completely financially driven. How many hospitals will have the courage/greed to discharge these patients the next morning is anyone's guess. I would hope that at least only high volume centers would consider this move.
What happens when the person goes home (could be 100 or more, but less than 150 miles from the hospital) and busts out an anastomotic leak? Or goes home and chugs a 2 liter of coke and gets an ischemic stomach?
This center has pretty low complication rates, and who knows what kind of selection was used... but they based their comlication rates on 1000 lap gastric bypass surgeries done at their institution. I wonder how many boards of local hospitals are going to point to Baylor and think, "Well, there ya go, a nice safe, money-making way to treat all of our lap gastric bypass patients." Considering that a lot of patients at academic centers aren't well-insured, one wonders how many hospital administrations will push to have outpatient surgery just to cut losses on the un/poorly insured.
Let's hope that the field interprets Baylor's experience appropriately: If you want to get outpatient lap gastric bypass at Baylor, go for it.
