Revision Total Hip Arthroplasty—Reducing Hospital Cost Through Fixed Implant Pricing

A large component of the cost of revision total hip arthroplasty (THA) is the cost of the implants. We examined the pricing of revision THA implants to determine the possible savings of different pricing models.

From our institutional database, all revision THAs done from 9/1/2013 to 8/31/2014 were identified. The cost of the implants was analyzed as a percentage of the total cost of the hospitalization and compared to direct to hospital and fixed implant pricing models.

Of 153 revision THAs analyzed, the cost of implants amounted to 36% of the total hospital cost. The direct to hospital cost and fixed implant pricing models would reduce the cost of an all-component revision to $4395 (saving $8962 per case) and $5000 (saving $8357 per case).

Both fixed implant pricing and the direct to hospital pricing models would result in a decrease in revision implant costs.