Director's Update

Patients With Diabetes Who Undergo Bariatric Surgery Do Not Have Lower Health Care Costs

• Six years following bariatric surgery, individuals with type 2 diabetes did not have lower health care costs than they had before surgery.
• These patients did have fewer primary care visits in the years following surgery.
• The findings were based on health insurance data of 7,806 patients with type 2 diabetes who underwent bariatric surgery using data from 7 Blue Cross Blue Shield Plans.
• New study from Effective Health Care Program's Developing Evidence to Inform Decisions about Effectiveness (DEcIDE) Network published in Medical Care.

Bleich SN, Chang HY, Lau B, Steele K, Clark JM, Richards T, Weiner JP, Wu AW, Segal JB. Impact of bariatric surgery on health care utilization and costs among patients with diabetes. Med Care 2012 Jan;50(1):58-65.

Image: The first page of the cited Medical Care article is shown.

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