North Texas Team Care Surgery Center is helping other providers throughout the state launch a transparent pricing model , allowing self-pay patients, self-insured employers, or health shares know precisely how much they will pay for several operations.
Dr. Nagaraj Kikkeri is the anesthesiologist who runs NTTC and is a leader in price transparency for DFW and now the state. His clinic provides easily shoppable, bundled, and simple prices for dozens of outpatient surgeries. Patients can check his website, select the surgery they need, and see the price they will pay for the entire process, with no surprise bills or added costs. A total knee replacement that often costs $30,000-$45,000 at major health centers costs $20,000 at NTTC, usually less than patients pay, even if they have good commercial insurance.
Now, Kikkeri is consulting with other practices from Amarillo to Corpus Christi to help organizations set up a transparent pricing model at their practices. Kikkeri helps the other clinics create a bundle that includes the total price for different operations while maintaining quality.
When contacted by a patient who can’t get to NTTC in Mesquite, Kikkeri and his team will create a bundle for the patient at a high-quality surgery center near their home and find a surgeon to accept the price and perform the operation. “Patients are finding us on the website and via word of mouth, and we are vetting the surgery centers,” Kikkeri says. “Not all surgery centers are created equal.”
NTTC also works with employers who want to subsidize their employees’ operations but want to save money by avoiding working through traditional insurance. NTTC also helps patients avoid a hospital stay, which can lead to infection or other complications.
Healthcare is only getting more expensive. Estimates say that surgery costs are around 30 percent of healthcare costs and 50 percent of all hospital costs, and musculoskeletal surgeries cost the healthcare system an estimated $420 billion in 2022. Medical costs are responsible for 60-65 percent of all bankruptcies, and Dallas and Fort Worth have some of the worst medical debt in the country.
Surgeries are happening more frequently and earlier as well. With improved technology and better recoveries, younger, more active adults are undergoing shoulder, knee, and hip replacements to help them maintain an active lifestyle.
Creating the bundles can be challenging. The clinic has to find surgeons, surgery assistants, anesthesiologists, nurses, and other professionals who will agree to their cut of the fixed price. Kikkeri says providers have found the model attractive because they get paid on the day of the surgery rather than waiting for the slow wheels of health insurance to turn and reimburse them for their work.
He is motivated by the impact that low-cost, transparent pricing can have on patients. “It is a labor of love and passion,” he says. “There is so much satisfaction when you are able to do something that is meaningful.”
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