Bariatric surgery or lifestyle change?

New Australian study on best value for money...

New analysis, commissioned by Medibank Private in Australia, has found that demand for obesity surgery is rising even faster than obesity rates – but that there is no positive cost-benefit. Bariatric surgery is becoming increasingly popular, but, at Aus $10,935 for gastric banding, it is much more expensive than drug treatments. More importantly, the surgery saves only Aus $7,567 over the patient’s remaining lifetime, on average – costing the system Aus $3,366 overall. In contrast, drug treatments for obesity have a benefit of $2,174 per patient over their remaining life, outweighing the cost  (Aus R$1,566) by Aus$618.

Despite this, Medibank Private has seen the number of its members claiming for surgery has sharply risen from 1,752 in 2006-2007 to 3,484 in 2008-2009, and benefits paid out by Medibank during this time for obesity surgery have trebled from Aus $9.46 million in 2004–2005 to Aus$30.2m in 2008–2009 – a trend described by Julie Andrews, Medibank’s executive general manager, health management, as ‘alarming’.

In contrast, lifestyle programmes teaching patients how to eat and exercise better, were found to be the most cost-effective, despite a lower success rate (11% for lifestyle programmes, compared with 8% for drugs and 28% for surgery). Their much lower cost meant they were the most cost-effective, with a benefit of Aus$2,846 for a cost of just Aus$1,081.

Source: The Australian, 29 March 2010.

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