Cardiac surgery costs according to the preoperative risk in the Brazilian public health system.

Background: Heart surgery has developed with increasing patient complexity.

Objective: To assess the use of resources and real costs stratified by risk factors of patients submitted to surgical cardiac procedures and to compare them with the values reimbursed by the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS).

Method: All cardiac surgery procedures performed between January and July 2013 in a tertiary referral center were analyzed.