Opportunity Costs of Vitreoretinal Surgeries

Dr. Ella Leung talks about her research using a theoretical model that analyzed data from the 2.3 million patients in the Vestra Metinal Healthcare Database, to calculate the average RVU per clinical visit, and how much vitreoretinal surgeons would have been compensated if they had been in clinics. For a subset of the data, she found significant opportunity costs for the surgeon to be in surgery (68%) compared to clinic. The research was prompted by recent Medicare increases in reimbursement for fees in the clinic but not for surgery. She suggests that adjustments to reimbursement for surgery are needed as a solution.