title: Estimating Surgical Procedure Times Using Anesthesia Billing Data and Operating Room Records.
abstract: The median time required to perform a surgical procedure is important in determining payment under Medicare's physician fee schedule. Prior studies have demonstrated that the current methodology of using physician surveys to determine surgical times results in overstated times. To measure surgical times more accurately, we developed and validated a methodology using available data from anesthesia billing data and operating room (OR) records.
  
  
  
  We estimated surgical times using Medicare 2011 anesthesia claims and New York Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System 2011 OR times. Estimated times were validated using data from the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program. We compared our time estimates to those used by Medicare in the fee schedule.
  
  
  
  We estimate surgical times via piecewise linear median regression models.
  
  
  
  Using 3.0 million observations of anesthesia and OR times, we estimated surgical time for 921 procedures. Correlation between these time estimates and directly measured surgical time from the validation database was 0.98. Our estimates of surgical time were shorter than the Medicare fee schedule estimates for 78 percent of procedures.
  
  
  
  Anesthesia and OR times can be used to measure surgical time and thereby improve the payment for surgical procedures in the Medicare fee schedule.
authors.affiliation: RAND Corporation, Arlington, VA.
authors.forename: Lane F
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Burgette
authors.affiliation: RAND Corporation, Arlington, VA.
authors.forename: Andrew W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Mulcahy
authors.affiliation: RAND Corporation, Boston, MA.|Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
authors.forename: Ateev
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mehrotra
authors.affiliation: RAND Corporation, Arlington, VA.
authors.forename: Teague
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ruder
authors.affiliation: RAND Corporation, Arlington, VA.
authors.forename: Barbara O
authors.initials: BO
authors.lastname: Wynn
mesh_terms: D000758:Anesthesia / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004282:Documentation; D005251:Fees, Medical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D006278:Medicare / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009518:New York; D009873:Operating Rooms / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D061646:Operative Time; D013514:Surgical Procedures, Operative / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States
keywords: Intraservice time; Medicare; resource-based relative value scale