THE COST AWARENESS AND ECONOMIC DECISION-MAKING OF ORTHOPEDIC SURGEONS: A CROSS-SECTIONAL ANALYSIS OF IMPLANT PRICE ESTIMATION AND CLINICAL PRACTICE PATTERNS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48047/4hj73k85Keywords:
Orthopaedic Surgery, Implant Costs, Cost Awareness, Healthcare Economics, Surgeon Decision-MakingAbstract
Orthopedic surgery is a technologically developed speciality, which is dependent on the use of implantable medical devices, thus adding to the increasing healthcare expenditures. The aim of the study was to assess the understanding of orthopedic surgeons regarding the cost of implants and also to test the connection between clinical experience and surgical workload, and accuracy of cost estimation. The survey was a cross-sectional and questionnaire based survey of 201 orthopedic surgeons with different practice settings. The questionnaire included demographic information, annual surgery volume, and approximated prices of orthopedic implantation commonly used. Real market prices were also attained with various suppliers to determine differences. These findings showed that the difference between the estimated and actual costs is very high with an average deviation of 47.1, which demonstrates that surgeons are not very aware about cost. It was observed that there was a statistically significant negative relationship between years of experience and estimated prices of some of the devices like shavers and interference screws, indicating that surgeons with more years of experience were likely to underprice them. Subspecialty and cost estimation accuracy did not have any significant association. Also, there was the possibility of being exposed to industry representatives which was found to affect price perceptions. These results indicate that there is a systemic failure of orthopedic surgeons to understand economic awareness, and it is necessary to achieve cost-effective decision-making without reducing the quality of patient care through the incorporation of healthcare economics in the educational process of medical institutions and through the creation of a more open dialogue between clinicians, institutions, and suppliers in medical economics..
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