Long-term follow-up care recommendations after total hip and knee arthroplasty

Long-term follow-up care is needed to evaluate and manage hip and knee arthroplasty outcomes, because impending failure may be asymptomatic. All active American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons’ members (N = 682) were surveyed for recommendations for follow-up care type and frequency, radiograph interpretation, and clinical indicators related to follow-up frequency intervals; and to describe reimbursement experiences and practice demographics. The response rate (65.5%, n = 447) established a 95% (±3%) confidence interval for the survey results. We found that 80% of respondents recommended annual or biennial orthopaedic clinical and radiographic examinations, with more frequent follow-up times for clinical or radiologic signs of failure, previous revision arthroplasty, previous joint sepsis, and subnormal periprosthetic bone quality. Further research is needed to correlate follow-up care type and frequency with outcomes, complications, and costs.