Cost Disclosure of Surgeon Scorecards: Effects on Operating Room Costs for Total Hip and Knee Arthroplasty

Background: Rising health care costs, coupled with an emphasis on cost containment, continue to gain importance. Surgeon cost scorecards developed to track case-based expenditures can help surgeons compare themselves with their peers and identify areas of potential quality improvement. Purpose: We sought to investigate what effect surgeon scorecards had on operating room (OR) costs in orthopedic surgery. Methods: Our hospital distributed OR cost scorecards to 4 adult reconstruction fellowship-trained orthopedic surgeons beginning in 2012. The average direct per-case supply cost of procedures was calculated quarterly and collected over a 5-year period, and each surgeon's data were compared with that of their peers. All 4 surgeons were made aware of the costs of other surgeons at the 2-year mark. The initial 2 years of data was compared with that of the final 2 years. Results: The average direct per-case supply cost ranged from $4955 to $5271 for total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and $5469 to $5898 for total hip arthroplasty (THA) during the initial 2-year period. After implementing disclosures, the costs for TKA and THA, respectively, ranged from $4266 to $4515 (14% annual cost savings) and from $5073 to $5727 (5% annual cost savings); 3 of the 4 surgeons said that cost transparency altered their practice. Conclusion: Our comparison suggests that orthopedic surgeons' participation in a program of operative cost disclosure may be useful to them; we found a possible association with reduced per-case costs for TKA and THA at our institution over a 5-year period. More rigorous study that incorporates the effects of the scorecards on patient outcomes is warranted.

Automated summary

This study investigates the impact of surgeon scorecards on operating room costs in orthopedic surgery, finding that increased cost transparency may lead to reduced per-case costs for total knee arthroplasty and total hip arthroplasty.