CHICAGO—The total costs for a single endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography procedure at a large-scale endoscopy center are essentially half of those at smaller centers, and a 0.2% increase in infection rate added nearly $100 per ERCP, regardless of location, according to a new study.
The researchers analyzed capital costs, fixed equipment costs and varying infection rates associated with reusable duodenoscopes during ERCPs. The infection rate across the published studies in the analysis averaged 0.9%. In a simulation of different infection rates, they found that a drop in infections of 0.2% decreased costs by the same amount—$97.19 per procedure—regardless of the volume of the center.