How Active Are Our Patients in the First 6 Weeks Following Total Knee Arthroplasty?

Concurrent market changes impact the need for increased patient activity shortly after surgery. A relatively recent market change is the shift to outpatient TKA after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services removed primary TKA from the inpatient-only list in 2018. This site-of-care shift was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and limited access to inpatient care for elective procedures. Prior to 2018, pilot programs for bundled care, such as the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) program from Medicare and similar Medicare Advantage programs, yielded cost savings from reduced usage of skilled nursing or rehabilitation facilities [7,8]. Combined, these changes created new clinical needs to increase immediate postoperative patient activity through advanced pain control protocols and immediate postoperative physical therapy. Same-day surgery has quickly become the standard of care for low- to medium-risk patients.
Source: The Journal of Arthroplasty - Category: Orthopaedics Authors: Tags: Proceedings of the Knee Society 2023 Source Type: research