Economic modeling and budget impact analysis in abdominal surgery: the case of Mesh

The chapter describes the Budget Impact Analysis (BIA) which is increasingly demanded by regulators as an essential part of a comprehensive economic evaluation of a new healthcare intervention. An example of BIA is presented considering the case of prostheses for incisional hernia repairs. The objective of this chapter is to give an overview of an ongoing project with the aim to estimate the current economic impact of the management of patients with incisional abdominal hernia through biosynthetic, synthetic or biologic meshes and to evaluate changes in the healthcare budget considering a future scenario with increased utilization rates of biosynthetic meshes in the next five years. The analysis is performed from the hospital perspective in Italy