Disparity in US, Canada heart-surgery costs -study

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Hospital costs for the most common kind
of heart surgery are more than 80 percent higher in the United
States than in Canada because of overheads, labor and other
factors, a study said on Monday.

But there is no difference in death rates from the
procedure in the two countries, doctors at Jewish General
Hospital in Montreal said after reviewing coronary artery
bypass surgeries involving 4,698 U.S. and 7,319 Canadian
patients.

Median hospital costs were $16,036 in the United States
compared to $7,880 in Canada, said the report published in the
Archives of Internal Medicine. Both figures are in U.S.
dollars.

While Canadian patients stayed in the hospital an average
of more than 16 percent longer than their American
counterparts, the report said, “there was no difference in
in-hospital mortality and the cost in the United States was
82.5 percent higher than in Canada.”

The cost disparity is “attributable to differences in
direct and overhead costs between the Canadian and U.S.
hospitals,” it added, mainly reflecting “higher resource prices
for products and labor and higher overhead costs in the United
States resulting from a nonsocialized medical system.”