Titan Medical Inc (TMDIF)

[urosurg]

I’m not arguing that it’s profitable to do a surgery robotically. I’m saying the cost isn’t enough extra to keep insurers from paying for the surgeries. There are also a lot of robotic “toys” that are expensive. These “toys” aren’t necessary to do quality surgery. For example... I do a robotic radical nephrectomy instead of a laparoscopic radical nephrectomy. I use the same stapler for both instead of the robotic stapler. No cost difference. All the robot ports are reusable metal ports instead of using disposable ports that I would use for the a pure laparoscopic nephrectomy. That’s actually a savings. I also don’t use an expensive ligasure or harmonic scalpel which I would have to use for a pure lap surgery. The working instruments are reusable on the robot as well although they do have a service life. The cords to power these instruments are sometimes single use and sometimes reusable depending on the instrument. The robot also requires a single use drape. There have been multiple people look at this from a cost analysis standpoint (like yourself), and they have all pretty much cake to the same conclusion. Robotic cases are more expensive, but the gap is much much smaller than many believe. It’s also very dependent on what the actual case is eg lap chole vs lap nephrectomy