Cleft Palate Repair Costs the Same for Internationally Adopted Children

The

Cleft Palate–Craniofacial Journal – Since

2009, United States residents have adopted more children from China than any

other country. Since China has a high prevalence of cleft lip and palate, some

of these children require extra medical care early in their lives. Many

prospective families are fearful of the treatment costs needed by a child

affected by cleft lip and palate. However, recent research suggests that the

costs are not nearly as high as previously thought.

A study

conducted between 2010 and 2013 and published in The Cleft

Palate–Craniofacial Journal reviewed the records of 138 patients from the

Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania who underwent first-time cleft palate

repair. For the purposes of the study, 118 US-born children were surveyed

against 20 international adoptees, with payments to surgeons,

anesthesiologists, and the hospital compared between the two groups. 

When analyzing the breakdown of payments made by

parents of children with cleft palates, they made a few surprising finds.

Twenty-six percent of US-born children were covered by Medicaid insurance, but

none of the adoptees were eligible. This resulted in the average adoptees’

payments being much higher as compared to the average payments for US-born

patients. However, the payment to anesthesiologists and the hospital were

actually lower for international adoptees. As a result, the total payment for

treatment was relatively similar for both groups. 

Overall, the authors of the study concluded that

families considering adoption of a child with cleft palate should not be

concerned with incurring excessive costs for the child’s repair surgery. As

international adoptions and wait times have increased dramatically since the

mid-1990s, considering a child with a birth defect could expedite the process

of family placement and lead to more children in need finding a home. 

Full text of the article, “Economic Analysis of

Cleft Palate Repair in International Adoptees,” The Cleft

Palate–Craniofacial Journal, Vol. 53, No. 5, 2016, are available at http://www.cpcjournal.org/doi/full/10.1597/14-227.