The cost of anesthetic drugs for spine surgery

I had no idea anesthesia was so complicated until I discovered your channel. Mad props to you, your profession, and your hospital for letting you make these videos.

As a patient, I find this video very interesting. I've had 4 spinal procedures. I'm allergic (have very adverse reactions) to all narcotic pain medication and Zofran. With my last surgery the anesthesiologist used propofol and ketamine, and I had the smoothest recovery of all of the previous surgeries. I have another surgery scheduled and am hoping for the best.

Your presentation shows how complicated anesthesia is, and the education, training, skill, and professional nature of physicians. Physicians are scientists! And it's great when a physician has a great sense of humor as you have!

As a pharmacy tech that prepares and delivers these drugs to the OR and throughout the hospital, it is really cool to see the context they're used in! It's also good to hear anesthesiologists always have cost in the back of their minds as well. Although we're not explicitly told to be conscious of cost as technicians, it's something I've always been aware of and I do everything in my (miniscule) power to reduce waste. Thanks for video!

Interesting way to calculate cost. I'd like to know how much the hospital actually charges though.

I really appreciate your straight forward videos, Max. I'm a healthcare compliance officer and seeing a sort of day in the life of providers is super helpful background education for me to better serve and support my staff. :)

I found your comments very informative. I administered my first anesthetic in 1971, and I am now semiretired after giving 52,000 anesthetics by actual count. You are wise to closely follow the reasoning of your various attending physicians; you will have your chance to make up your own mind later. My first comment is that you mentioned meeting your patient, but not starting your own IV. We were taught never to go to the OR with less than an 18g IV and that that was on the small side! It is important to know that the IV is a good one, and that it is connected the way you want it, taped in a secure way, and that you have a second one if the patient is completely covered and the anesthetic is TIVA. I have noticed that the newer anesthesiologists watch the monitors; we always watched the patient first. I noticed that muscle relaxation was somewhat vague. This is very important because the technician can tell you (and convince the surgeon) that the monitoring of evoked stimulation is adequate even though you gave a medium dose of rocuronium at the start of the case. Minor movement of the patient is something that you should notice before anyone else as it is the first, and best, sign of patient awareness. Some surgeons are good at local until they move to the spot that isn't numb. I like to have something from the gas machine going or at least highly anticipated because our feedback from the gas machine is so good and feedback from the detached IV dripping on the floor ain't so good. By the way, I laugh at decision trees and best practices. You should learn that in medical school. The nurses were taught that everything was in the book. We were taught that the book was out of date and it was our job to write the next book. Now go out there and get 'um! God Bless.

As someone who has had two spinal surgeries (and will likely have more in the future), this is an amazing video. Thank you.

Thanks for another great video! I thoroughly enjoy seeing things like this because my dads an accountant so I have a thing for numbers, but also my sister’s a clinical engineer in charge of equipment installations in hospitals so I like seeing the behind the scenes too of how her job effects yours, fascinating stuff!

oh wow, i’m a veterinary technician and i’m actually shocked at how many of the same medications we use! biggest difference being that i don’t legally have to do any schooling to do anesthesia monitoring lmao

So amazing to live at a time in history where doctors like you can sedate us during surgery. It is sad however that an asprin in a hospital costs like $200 dollars. Medicine should be between doctors and the patient. Insurance companies should get out of the way.

This is actually really fascinating. It would be interesting to know the retail price that was charged to insurance, versus patient-pay. These medicines were surprisingly inexpensive. Well-done video... looking forward to others. Cheers...

Great idea for a video! Nice to see it all broken down and quantified. I’d love if you did this with different types of surgeries to compare costs. Comparing Ortho to Urology to C-sections.

Very interesting, Doctor Feinstein. Thank you for this video. Having had L5/S1 fusion performed on 11/21/22, it is nice to see much of what the anesthesiologist could use during the surgery. You guys are miracle workers, taking a patient to the brink of death and bringing them back. Once again, thank you for this video. ~John

I’m about to start my pre-reqs to become an RN and your videos have popped up in my YouTube in my search for learning more about the field. I’ve become obsessed with your videos, though. My goodness, you have awesome content. Prior to watching your videos I didn’t know anything about anesthesia and I am now so fascinated by it! Thank you for these incredibly well-done videos. You’re a natural educator and as a fellow NYC’er, I hope for the opportunity meet you one day and shake your hand! Hopefully not as a patient, unless I’m giving birth by c-section!😅 High respects for you, Dr. Feinstein!

I tried to fight my anesthesia one time and when I came to, they informed me I said “f you, you got me you bastards”. Still cracks me up to this day.

I had spine surgery in 2018 under Dr. Lenke at NY-Presbyterian and was under anesthesia for about 18 hours total. That was a long surgery. I had severe kyphoscoliosis due to being born with VACTERL, so I came out of that surgery a new woman who could wear button-up shirts for the first time. Also, I love Dilaudid. It was the only thing that worked for pain when I had MRSA in my spinal incision during a (failed) spinal surgery I had in 2007. That stuff is amazing. Thank you for sharing the rundown of costs! Some of that stuff is so expensive! And thank you for being an anesthesiologist. You guys don't get enough credit!

Great video Max!! I work on designing billing/revenue management software for surgery centers and am learning so much from your videos for my job!

You're like any other doctor on social media,but you'll be helpful for med students and those who are here to LEARN

This was great! I was an implant rep for 3 years and always wanted to talk to anesthesia more but I was mostly focused on praying to god there were no holes in our set wrappers or planning for what random thing the surgeon might need from an unrelated set to have ready in the core. Good times though, miss it (well, parts of it).