To compare commercial insurance payments for outpatient total knee and hip replacement surgeries performed in hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs) and in ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs).
A large national claims database that contains information on actual prices paid to providers over the period 2014‐2017.
We identified all patients receiving total knee replacement surgery and total hip replacement surgery in HOPDs and in ASCs for each of the 4 years.
For each year, we conducted descriptive and statistical patient‐level analyses of the facility component of payments to HOPDs and to ASCs.
For each procedure and for each year, ASC payments exceeded HOPD payments by a wide margin; however, the gap across settings declined over time. In 2014, knee replacement payments to HOPDs (n = 67) were $6016 compared to $23 244 in ASCs (n = 68). By 2017, payments to HOPDs (n = 223) had grown to $10 060 compared to $18 234 in ASCs (n = 602). Similarly, for hip replacements, HOPD payments (n = 43) rose from $6980 in 2014 to $11 139 in 2017 (n = 206) and in ASCs fell from $28 485 in 2014 (n = 82) to $18 595 in 2017 (n = 465).
Results suggest that for total joint replacement, common perceptions of cost savings from transition of services from hospitals to ASCs may be misguided.
