تصنيف:إشكالية العائد على المرضى والمجتمع

What do these numbers mean? Is that a good number? They are great, but let me give you some comparisons. For the sake of comparison, when Zollinger-Ellison syndrome is treated with proton pump inhibitors, the QOL gain is 38%. Treating depression is about the same. Single-eye cataract surgery is about 20% (similar to treatment of glaucoma with timolol). For antihypertensive therapies, the QOL gain is 6%-9%, depending on which drug you use. Many people are on statins for hyperlipidemia. That improvement in QOL is 3%-5%. So you can see that for cataract surgery, that 20% for a single eye and 36% for the second eye is an amazing number. It's good to be able to quantify it. That is patient value.

Let's go to the third block -- economic analyses -- and look at the financial gain. This gets a little bit rough, a bit dry, so I will try hard to keep you interested. The direct medical cost for a unilateral cataract surgery in 2012 was $2653. We will call it $2600. You would probably be interested and not surprised to find out that it is 34% less than in 2000. These are the direct medical costs -- what we pay doctors, hospitals, and surgery centers. In 1985, this was 85% less, and out of that -- and this won't shock anybody -- the physician fee in 2012 is 90% less than it was in 1985. One Eye Is Good, but Two Are Better