The Cost of an OR Minute
The OR is often the largest revenue and cost generating department in the hospital and has a significant impact on a hospital’s financial success. Research reveals that a single minute (60 seconds) of OR time is valued at $62.00 on average. These calculations typically include the cost of basic procedure equipment (OR table, surgical set etc.), disposables, a circulating nurse, and a scrub tech or nurse, not the wages/salary of surgeons who are often paid on a “per-procedure” basis, blood products, medications, inflation, and other costly procedure-specific variables. “Most hospitals charge for a procedure in the operating room by the minute or by 15- or 60- minute segments. Many facilities round up to the next 15 minutes. A few hospitals charge a flat rate for a given number of minutes and then charge per minute if the surgeon takes longer than the average projected time. Keep in mind that when flat rates are used, they are calculated on the basis of average historical “times” so even flat rates are time dependent.”1 Further, there are other important considerations to include that these monetary evaluations do not:
- Increased complications
- Increased anesthesia time for the patient.
- A research article published in April of 2018, found that for every added minute a patient spent in the OR (up to 10 minutes) their risk of complication increased by 1%!2
- The average complication cost: $19,626.3
2. Surgical smoke exposure
- Research studies confirm that surgical smoke plume contains toxic gases and vapors such as benzene, hydrogen cyanide, formaldehyde, dead and living cellular materials, and viruses. In fact, HPV, has been found aerosolized in the surgical plume. 9
- Over half of clinicians report having symptoms of surgical smoke exposure: Headache, eyes watering, sore throat dizziness etc. 4
3. Opportunity Cost
- The Surgeon and staff are tied up in surgery the whole day, even when they are not actively operating. This has a personal and professional cost.
- Misused OR time has also been proposed to cost the amount of time it would take to perform another full procedure,5 which is a financial loss for the facility and staff.