Dogs vs Humans

Posted on June 26th, 2008 by Sean Khozin, MD, MPH

If your dog gets sick and need a bronchoscopy, you would have to shell out about $2500 for the procedure, according a couple of veterinary price lists that I found online. The same procedure done in a human is reimbursed by Medicare $156.29 to $377.45 (for a CPT code of 31622 in New York City).

Human doctors are cheap.

Filed under: Health Policy

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3 Responses to “Dogs vs Humans”

  1. John, on June 27th, 2008 at 11:55 am Said:

    Is there a special type of vet who would have to do this, or could it be expected from any vet? Otherwise, sounds time consuming and there is a bit of a shortage of vets these days.

  2. Sean Khozin, MD, MPH, on June 27th, 2008 at 1:24 pm Said:

    John,

    I actually talked to a vet about this. To do bronchoscopies you do need specialized training and there are not that many vets that do it. Also, you can only do bronchcoscopies in large dogs, but there are a number of other very lucrative procedures that vets do on a daily basis that beats what human doctors get paid.

  3. James, on July 14th, 2008 at 9:50 am Said:

    I suspect that once you factor in facility fees, equipment, anesthesia, and the other relevant charges, the Medicare bill will be about the same for both dog and human. The CPT you highlighted refers to the amount the operating physician can TRY to collect from Medicare.

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