Increasing Use of Preoperative Consultations Among Medicare Patients Undergoing Cataract Surgery

For patients undergoing elective surgery, surgeons or anesthesiologists sometimes request separate preoperative consultations. Although such consultations are reimbursed by Medicare, their necessity or value is unclear. In this retrospective study, researchers used a Medicare database to assess preoperative consultation use in 557,000 patients (age, ≥66) who underwent first cataract surgeries between 1995 and 2006. Most consultations were provided by internists and family physicians.

During the study period, the frequency of preoperative consultations increased significantly from 11% to 18%. Among patients who underwent surgery in 2005 or 2006, those who received preoperative consultations, compared with those who did not, were more likely t…