The Neurosurgery Enterprise and Its Stakeholders

For every major problem facing the world today, from conflict resolution to healthcare delivery (including neurosurgical care), there are economic aspects to consider. As clinicians, to best serve our patient populations, we must understand economic aspects of the healthcare enterprise. Economics can provide tools helpful when preparing impactful solutions. As economist John M Keynes stated, “economics is a method rather than a doctrine, an apparatus of the mind, a technique of thinking, which helps their possessors to draw correct conclusions.” In other words, economics teaches one how to think, not what to think. In this chapter we will first review the complexity of the neurosurgery enterprise and introduce the concept of health stock. We will then review the major forces influencing the economic aspects of neurosurgery. We hope that this synopsis will encourage readers to discover new ways of thinking and interpreting current events nationally and internationally and furthermore allow this to direct patient care in the most impactful ways.