The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that in both the Medicare and privately insured populations, the proportion of procedures using anesthesia services increased from about 14 percent in 2003 to more than 30 percent in 2009. Regional variation was significant, with anesthesia services used least frequently in the West (around 13 percent) and most frequently in the Northeast (59 percent).
The expense of anesthesia services rose with the frequency of the procedure, the study found. The cost of a procedure increased by $150 if the patient received Medicare and by $500 if the patient was privately insured. Researchers estimated that the use of anesthesia services for these procedures amounted to $1.1 billion in 2009.
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