I spoke to a family physician a few weeks back, about how much a joint surgeon makes for a joint replacement.
I was telling him that the average amount that Medicare pays for a joint replacement was about $1,400.
He was absolutely flabbergasted. He thought they made multiples of that.
I then told him that the $1,400 also includes rounding in the hospital (if done inpatient), and all care for the global 3 month period after the surgery.
Still incredulous, I told him about how some joint surgeons tell me that their take home after overhead comes out to around $250 per joint.
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Joints always seem to be hit pretty hard by Medicare cuts, as they have a large target on their back due to the aging of the boomer generation.
In response to decreasing reimbursements, joint surgeons have become more efficient: outpatient replacements, no more sending the patient to rehab centers for weeks at a time, minimal PT, opioid sparing surgeries, spinal anesthesia etc.
The thing is, there isn’t much more efficiency left to gain. One joint surgeon can only do so many joints in a given time period. A lot of these guys and gals are already at maximum capacity.
So they will continue to toil away while reimbursements get cut every single year.
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So what will happen?
My best guess is that they will just increase their patient volume and resultant complaining.
I bet if Medicare paid $100 instead of $1400 total for a joint replacement most of these guys would have no answer for it. Even if they lost money.
It would just leave them open to corporate takeovers or maybe hospital salaried positions.
But possibly a minority will just stop doing them. Who knows.
