The Kidney Transplant Evaluation Process in the Elderly: Reasons for Being Turned down and Opportunities to Improve Cost-Effectiveness in a Single Center

Table 1

Estimated charges of “basic” and “supplementary” diagnostic tests.

Diagnostic tests	Estimated charges in USD per test	Number of patients who underwent unnecessary testing	Estimated charges in USD per test multiplied by number of patients
Basic testing
Complete blood count	81	51	4,131
Comprehensive metabolic panel	170	51	8,670
Coagulation profile (PT, PTT)	141	51	7,191
Blood typing	97	51	4,947
Human leukocyte antigen typing	500	51	25,500
Panel reactive antibodies	100	51	5,100
Rapid plasma reagin	59	51	3,009
Electrocardiogram	225	51	11,475
Chest radiograph	312	51	15,912
Viral serologies (hepatitis B surface Ag, hepatitis B core Ab, hepatitis B surface Ab, HCV Ab, HIV Ab, CMV IgG/IgM, EBV IgG/IgM)	1,008	51	51,408
Total	2,693	51	137,343
Supplementary testing
Dobutamine stress echocardiogram	1,747	10	17,470
Nuclear (regadenoson) stress test	3,663	1	3,663
2D-echocardiogram with Doppler	3,091	2	6,182
Left heart catheterization	9,500	9	85,500
Carotid arterial Doppler	677	10	6,770
CT angiography of abdomen/pelvis	5,010	7	35,070
CT abdomen/pelvis with/without contrast	5,232	1	5,232
Pulmonary function test	525	4	2,100
Lower extremity arterial Doppler	604	2	1,208
CT chest with/without contrast	2,624	1	2,624
24-hour Holter monitoring	711	1	711
Voiding cystourethrogram	464	1	464
Total			166,994

PT, prothrombin time; PTT, partial thromboplastin time; Ag, antigen; Ab, antibody; HCV, hepatitis C virus; HIV, human immunodeficiency virus; CMV, cytomegalovirus; IgG, immunoglobulin G; IgM, immunoglobulin M; EBV, Epstein-Barr virus; CT, computed tomography.