Hip surgeries among Americans ages 45 to 54 doubled between 2002 and 2011, but physicians performing total hip arthroplasty declined 28.8 percent, according to MDDI Online.
Alexander S. McLawhorn, MD, and colleagues presented these findings at AAOS this year, saw an 89.2 percent increase of THAs performed in patients aged 45 to 64 years old between the decade.
MDDI Online notes the abstract did not speak to the cause for the decline in physicians performing THAs, but they do note Medicare has been cutting reimbursement for the procedure. The study itself noted population growth in that segment could attest to why the number of people needing a THA procedure spiked, and also found changes in what hospitals charged for hip replacements did not have a correlation with the number of surgeries performed, according to MDDI Online.
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