Questions to Ask Your Doctor Before Surgery

About 50 million inpatient surgeries and 53 million ambulatory surgeries are performed in the U.S. every year. The overall rate of serious surgical complications is 3% to 5% for major procedures. About 4,000 wrong-site, wrong-procedure, or wrong-patient surgical errors happen annually. Asking the right questions before you go under anesthesia protects you.

Questions About the Procedure

What are the benefits and risks of this surgery? Are there non-surgical alternatives? What happens if I don't have the surgery? What type of anesthesia will be used? How long will the surgery take? What's the expected recovery time? Will I need physical therapy or rehabilitation afterward?

Questions About the Surgeon

How many times have you performed this specific procedure? What is your complication rate? Are you board-certified in the relevant specialty? Research consistently shows that surgeons and hospitals with higher procedure volumes have better outcomes. For complex procedures like pancreatic surgery, high-volume centers have mortality rates 2 to 3 times lower than low-volume centers.

Questions About Safety

Does your team follow the Joint Commission's Universal Protocol (time-out, site marking, patient verification)? What infection prevention measures are in place? What's this hospital's complication and infection rate for this procedure? You can check the hospital's safety record on CMS Care Compare and Leapfrog's Hospital Safety Grade.

Questions About Cost

Will all the providers involved (surgeon, anesthesiologist, assistant) be in my insurance network? Can I get a cost estimate in writing beforehand? Under the No Surprises Act, you're protected from surprise bills for out-of-network providers you didn't choose at in-network facilities, but asking upfront avoids confusion.