Strabismus surgery charges at ambulatory facilities across the United States.
Publication/Presentation Date
1-31-2026
Abstract
PURPOSE: To identify factors associated with variation in strabismus surgery charges at hospital-owned facilities across the United States.
METHODS: This cross-sectional study included all strabismus-related patient encounters in the National Ambulatory Surgery Sample over a 5-year period (January 2016 to December 2020). The primary outcome was total charge per encounter. Multivariable linear regression was used to estimate the association of charge per encounter with patient, hospital, and regional characteristics, adjusting for procedure complexity and inflation. Sampling weights were used to generate nationally representative estimates and appropriate standard errors.
RESULTS: We included 154,005 patient encounters. Most surgeries were performed on pediatric patients (69.9%) and at teaching facilities (91.8%). The median charge per encounter was $12,889 (Interquartile range, $8,840 to $17,573). Compared with the Midwest, charges were higher in the Northeast by 20.0% (95% CI, 8.4%, 32.9%; P = 0.0004) and South by 15.9% (95% CI, 4.8%-28.1%; P = 0.004). Nonteaching hospitals had 35.0% higher charges (95% CI, 17.6%-55.0%; P < 0.0001) compared with teaching hospitals. Rural hospitals had 26.6% (95% CI, 19.4%-33.1%; P < 0.0001) lower charges compared to urban hospitals. Patients residing in ZIP codes within the lowest income quartile had on average 6.8% (95% CI, 1.8%-12.2%; P = 0.008) higher charges than those in the highest income quartile.
CONCLUSIONS: Our findings highlight substantial variation nationwide in charges for strabismus surgeries, raising important questions about how these differences may influence subspecialty geographic distribution of care and affect treatment access for patients with strabismus.
First Page
104745
Last Page
104745
ISSN
1528-3933
Published In/Presented At
Wu, Z. Z., Oatts, J. T., Hunter, D. G., & Oke, I. (2026). Strabismus surgery charges at ambulatory facilities across the United States. Journal of AAPOS : the official publication of the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, 104745. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaapos.2026.104745
Disciplines
Medicine and Health Sciences | Pediatrics
PubMedID
41628763
Department(s)
Department of Pediatrics
Document Type
Article