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HealthLeaders magazine, May 13, 2009

Medicare payments to general surgeons peaked in the middle of this decade and have been sliding since. After rising steadily from $1.51 billion in 2000 to $1.86 billion in 2005, payments slipped to $1.77 billion in 2007. The top five procedures account for about a third of a billion dollars, with colectomy No. 1. And while payments for open colectomies have declined from $114 million in 2002 to about $90 million in 2007, payments for laparoscopic colectomies have increased over that same period from just under $5 million to $28 million.