Comparing the Cost of Delayed and Immediate Autologous Breast Reconstruction in Belgium

M. Neyt (), Johan Albrecht, P. Blondeel and C. Morrison
Additional contact information
C. Morrison: -

Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium from Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

Abstract: This study documents the cost of immediate and delayed DIEP flap breast reconstruction. Immediate reconstruction is more attractive from an economic perspective since it only requires one operation, one anaesthetic procedure and one recovery period in hospital. From the perspective of health care budget management, assessing the possible cost savings from immediate reconstruction yields interesting results. Since charges do not reflect the real costs of providing care, we calculated resource costs using the micro-costing method. About 95 per cent of the initial mastectomy costs could be saved when performing an immediate breast reconstruction. This was about 35 per cent of total standard direct and indirect costs due to mastectomy and delayed breast reconstruction. In a growing cost conscious environment of managed care, the economic evaluation should therefore encourage the trend towards more immediate reconstructions.

Keywords: Immediate breast reconstruction; Autologous breast reconstruction; DIEP flap; Resource costs; Savings (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2004-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://wps-feb.ugent.be/Papers/wp_04_236.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rug:rugwps:04/236

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium from Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Nathalie Verhaeghe ().