Treatment at a cancer center or community hospital: Which costs private insurers more?

The study is believed to be the first to report on variations in insurer prices paid and episode spending by hospital type for privately insured patients undergoing common cancer surgery.

Patients with private insurance undergoing surgery for breast, colon, or lung cancer at National Cancer Institute (NCI) centers were associated with higher insurer spending and higher 90-day post-discharge payments compared with community hospitals — and without differences in care utilization.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, Abramson Cancer Center, and Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, as well as the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center in Philadelphia, studied nearly 67,000 patients ages 65 and older who underwent common cancer surgery at an NCI center or a community hospital between 2011 and 2014. More than 75% of the patients were women, and more than 75% of all patients had their surgeries at community hospitals, 16% had their surgeries at non-NCI academic hospitals, and 8% underwent surgery at NCI centers.