Between 2007 and 2011, the rates of bariatric surgery ranged from 4 procedures per 100,000 Medicare beneficiaries in San Francisco to nearly 111 procedures per 100,000 Medicare beneficiaries in Muskegon, Mich. Nationally, the average was about 33 bariatric procedures per 100,000 Medicare enrollees.
While fewer than 150,000 bariatric surgeries were performed in 2010, the potential for the procedure to become more popular exists: More than 10 million Americans meet the obesity criteria for having a bariatric surgery. The cost for every American who qualified for the procedure to undergo it would exceed $150 billion, according to data from the report.
