Association of Insurance Type With Inpatient Surgery 30-Day Complications and Costs

Introduction: Safety-net hospitals (SNHs) have higher postoperative complications and costs versus low-burden hospitals. Do low socioeconomic status/vulnerable patients receive care at lower-quality hospitals or are there factors beyond providers' control? We studied the association of private, Medicare, and vulnerable insurance type with complications/costs in a high-burden SNH.Methods: Retrospective inpatient cohort study using National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) data (2013-2019) with cost data risk-adjusted by frailty, preoperative serious acute conditions (PASC), case status, and expanded operative stress score (OSS) to evaluate 30-day unplanned reoperations, any complication, Clavien-Dindo IV (CDIV) complications, and hospitalization variable costs.Results: Cases (Private 1517; Medicare 1224; Vulnerable 3648) with patient mean age 52.3 y [standard deviation = 14.7] and 47.3% male. Adjusting for frailty and OSS, vulnerable pa-tients had higher odds of PASC (aOR = 1.71, CI = 1.39-2.10, P < 0.001) versus private. Adjusting for frailty, PASC and OSS, Medicare (aOR = 1.27, CI = 1.06-1.53, P = 0.009), and vulnerable (aOR = 2.44, CI = 2.13-2.79, P < 0.001) patients were more likely to undergo urgent/emergent surgeries. Vulnerable patients had increased odds of reoperation and any complications versus private. Variable cost percentage change was similar between private and vulnerable after adjusting for case status. Urgent/emergent case status increased percentage change costs by 32.31%. We simulated "switching" numbers of private (3648) versus vulnerable (1517) cases resulting in an estimated variable cost of $49.275 million, a 25.2% decrease from the original $65.859 million.Conclusions: Increased presentation acuity (PASC and urgent/emergent surgeries) in vulnerable patients drive increased odds of complications and costs versus private, sug-gesting factors beyond providers' control. The greatest impact on outcomes may be from decreasing the incidence of urgent/emergent surgeries by improving access to care. 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.