Implantable Medical Devices for Hip Replacement Surgery: Economic Implications for California Hospitals

Technology (BCHT) has been working with the Integrated Healthcare Association (IHA) on its Value-Based Purchasing of Medical Devices (VBP) Project, which has included the collection and analysis of hospital and patient data on seven orthopedic, cardiac, and spinal procedures. This Issue Brief is the second in a series that comes out of this project, and presents fi ndings on implant costs, complications, total surgical costs, and insurance reimbursement for hip replacement surgery. Forty-fi ve hospitals in California participated in the full collection initiative, providing data on device costs, length of stay, total procedure costs, complications, reimbursements, and patient characteristics. Hospital participants are diverse in terms of whether they belong to a hospital system, urban or rural location, for-profit or non-profit status, teaching status, and bed size. All data are from 2008.