Surgical complications requiring a second operation result in significant extra hospital costs, uncollectible revenue, and high mortality.
Complications may generate substantial uncollectible costs; this case report leaves open quantification across surgical populations.
Fifteen patients who had a general or gynecologic abdominal operation were operated on a second time for a complication of the first operation. There were three deaths. Extra costs attributable to the complications amounted to +211,503, of which one third was uncollectible. One half of the extra hospital days for surviving patients were spent in the intensive care unit.
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Lockert B. Mason (1984) studied this question.
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