Most top orthopedic hospitals provide accessible but cryptic cost information for TJA
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Results showed most of the top 50 orthopedic hospitals provided publicly accessible cost information for total joint arthroplasty procedures but in a format that did not benefit patients.
“Our primary purpose for performing this study was to determine if the recent mandate requiring hospitals to provide publicly accessible pricing information is helpful for patients when considering hip and knee arthroplasty,” Benjamin M. Stronach, MD, told Healio.
Stronach and colleagues searched the websites of the top 50 US News and World Report orthopedic hospitals to find publicly accessible procedural charges for total hip and total knee arthroplasty procedures. Researchers collected the number of clicks to locate pricing documents, number of files provided and number of data rows pertaining to arthroplasty. Researchers used diagnosisrelated group codes, CPT codes and keyword searches of “arthroplasty” “total hip” and “total knee” to query charge data.
Results showed 88% of the top 50 US News and World Report orthopedic institutions had publicly accessible files containing cost information.
“The majority of hospitals provided pricing information for the hip and knee arthroplasty only list based on diagnosisrelated group codes with few hospitals providing keyword search terms,” Stronach said. “We also found pricing information to be difficult to find on many of the websites when searches were conducted by trained health care professionals.”
Researchers found an average of 226,190 rows of data per file. Researchers noted average charges varied depending on the use of DRG, CPT or keyword searches rang from $6,663 to $117,072.
“Orthopedic surgeons have an opportunity to champion pricing transparency to help contain the increasing costs of US health care and be leaders in providing high quality yet cost-effective care for our patients,” Stronach said. “It is imperative that we are involved in the process to ensure the system becomes more efficient by lessening administrative burdens that don’t directly benefit patient care, the patient-physician relationship remains intact and the end goal of cost containment to the consumer and system is attained.”
Collapse
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts