Undergoing bariatric (weight-loss) surgery leads to greatly reduced prescription drug costs — savings that largely benefit health insurance providers — according to a new analysis published in the journal JAMA Surgery.
Bariatric surgery has been shown to have a wide range of health benefits in people with obesity, especially those with type 2 diabetes. It has been shown to promote remission of type 2 diabetes and prediabetes, meaning that you have normal blood glucose levels without taking any glucose-lowering drugs. Undergoing the surgery may reduce the risk for certain cancers, improve kidney disease outcomes, improve mobility while reducing pain, and increase overall longevity. Most of these benefits are likely to be a direct results of the surgery, but some of them may be linked to the healthier lifestyle behaviors that people who undergo bariatric surgery tend to practice. The health benefits of bariatric surgery are so clear that the latest guidelines for the surgery expanded eligibility for the procedure.
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For the latest analysis, researchers at Henry Ford Health in Michigan looked at health insurance claims for people who underwent bariatric surgery during the 360 days before the surgery as well as the 360 days afterward. The participants in the analysis were 760 people with type 2 diabetes with an average age of 49 at the time of the surgery, and 66.3% were women, as noted in an article on the analysis at MedPage Today. Most participants, 78%, underwent a form of bariatric surgery called sleeve gastrectomy, while 22% underwent gastric bypass. The surgeries took place between 2015 and 2021.
The researchers noted that overall, people with diabetes tend to have health care costs about 2.3 times as high as those of people without diabetes — costs that are shared by all people with health insurance in the form of higher premiums and copays, and are also shared by taxpayers when it comes to public health insurance programs. But perhaps surprisingly, glucose-lowering medications and diabetes-related supplies account for only about 15% of total health care costs among people with diabetes — meaning that treating other health conditions and potential diabetes complications accounts for most of the higher costs.
Reduced expenditures for prescription drugs linked to bariatric surgery
The researchers found that in the 360 days following bariatric surgery, the average reduction in costs for prescription drugs paid by their health insurer was $4,133. These savings were even greater for people who underwent gastric bypass ($6,736), while they were smaller for people who underwent sleeve gastrectomy ($3,409). After 360 days, 67.7% of the participants were not filling a prescription for any glucose-lowering medication, indicating that a high proportion may have been experiencing diabetes remission. Most of the cost savings occurred during the first 120 days following the surgery, the researchers noted. They also emphasized that prescription drug costs could be lower in following years as well, leading to potentially many thousands of dollars in savings as a result of bariatric surgery. For comparison, the average adjusted cost of bariatric surgery among the participants was $14,832.
The researchers noted that the participants in their analysis all had either private health insurance or a Medicare Advantage plan, meaning that they didn’t represent the overall population of people with diabetes eligible for bariatric surgery. Still, these results indicate that bariatric surgery could lead to widespread cost savings in addition to the demonstrated health benefits of the procedure.
Want to learn more about bariatric surgery and type 2 diabetes? Read “Is Bariatric Surgery for You?” and “Bariatric Surgery and Diabetes: Questions and Answers.”
