Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/230048 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Citation: 
[Journal:] Health Economics [ISSN:] 1099-1050 [Volume:] 28 [Issue:] 11 [Publisher:] Wiley [Place:] Hoboken, NJ [Year:] 2019 [Pages:] 1293-1307
Publisher: 
Wiley, Hoboken, NJ
Abstract: 
Surgical measures to combat obesity are very effective in terms of weight loss, recovery from diabetes, and improvement in cardiovascular risk factors. However, previous studies found both positive and negative results regarding the effect of bariatric surgery on health care utilization. Using claims data from the largest health insurance provider in Germany, we estimated the causal effect of bariatric surgery on health care costs in a time period ranging from 2 years before to 3 years after bariatric intervention. Owing to the absence of a control group, we employed a Bayesian structural forecasting model to construct a synthetic control. We observed a decrease in medication and physician expenditures after bariatric surgery, whereas hospital expenditures increased in the post-intervention period. Overall, we found a slight increase in total costs after bariatric surgery, but our estimates include a high degree of uncertainty.
Subjects: 
bariatric surgery
Bayesian structural model
obesity
synthetic controls
time series
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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