Purchasing Insight: Bariatric Surgery
Bariatric surgery is a growing industry in the U.S., showing a 16-fold growth within the last 15 years. Roughly 220,000 bariatric procedures are performed annually in the United States alone.
This is due to the effectiveness of bariatric surgery compared with nonsurgical weight programs (diet and exercise) for weight loss in obese patients and the laparoscopic technique, which has made surgery safer and recovery time shorter. With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicting the number of obese adults to rise in the United States, the bariatric surgery market can be expected to grow with it.
There are three main types of bariatric procedures performed in the U.S.: Gastric Bypass (Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass or RYGB), Sleeve Gastrectomy, and Gastric Banding. All three procedures may be performed by open or laparoscopic technique although the minimally invasive laparoscopic technique is the most common method. Gastric Banding is the only procedure that requires use of an additional consumable outside of stiches.
Listed below is the pricing for the two FDA approved bands for gastric banding surgery.
Gastric Banding (Quoted Prices)
Band 1
Low High Average Price
$2,592 $3,370.50 $2,891.84
Band 2
Low High Average Price
$2,595 $3,595 $2,884.50
Under CMS, reimbursement for gastric band placement and gastric band removal/replacement will increase by 4.5 percent and 6.8 percent respectively in 2014. However, CMS has also predicted that market basket/CPI will increase by 2.5 percent, which means this increase in reimbursement for gastric band surgery reflects only a slight hard dollar increase.
Data Source: MD Buyline (Please note these numbers have been adjusted to exclude special deals, outliers and unique circumstances)
