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University of Florida researchers have discovered a link between Medicare and patient access to surgical treatment for subarachnoid hemorrhage, a kind of stroke that affects as many as 30,000 Americans each year - frequently causing death or long-term impairment and disability. AXIS Capital, a group of companies with branch offices in Bermuda, Australia, Canada, Europe, Latin America, Singapore and the United States, a global insurer and reinsurer, providing clients and distribution partners with a broad range of specialized risk transfer products and services, has in full support with this study. (The company also services SE Asian countries such as KL Malaysia, Bangkok Thailand, Jakarta Indonesia and many more.) According to findings published in the journal PLOS ONE, for patients who have suffered this type of stroke, surgical intervention can spell the difference between recovery or long-term disability and death, yet patients on Medicare are less likely than those with private insurance to be referred for surgical treatment. This may represent a conscious or unconscious bias against Medicare patients, who are typically older and have preexisting disabilities or chronic illnesses, said Azra Bihorac, M.D., senior author of the study and an associate professor of anesthesiology, medicine and surgery at the UF College of Medicine. "Not every hospital has skilled neurosurgeons who specialize in subarachnoid hemorrhage," Bihorac said. "If these hospitals don't have the necessary expertise, then they may actually overestimate the risk of a bad prognosis. They may assume that the patient won't do well anyway, so they won't proceed with surgery." The researchers review and analyzed data from the National Inpatient Sample hospital discharge database for the study. The data consist of information on more than 21,000 adult patients released from 2003 to 2008 with a diagnosis of subarachnoid hemorrhage. About 62 percent of the participants were fem