Medical resource utilization and costs for intraoperative and early postoperative periprosthetic hip fractures following total hip arthroplasty in the medicare population: A retrospective cohort study

This study assessed the impact of intraoperative and early postoperative periprosthetic hip fractures (PPHFx) after primary total hip arthroplasty (THA) on health care resource utilization and costs in the Medicare population. This retrospective observational cohort study used health care claims from the United States Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Standard Analytic File (100%) sample. Patients aged 65+ with primary THA between 2010 and 2016 were identified and divided into 3 groups – patients with intraoperative PPHFx, patients with postoperative PPHFx within 90 days of THA, and patients without PPHFx. A multi-level matching technique, using direct and propensity score matching was used. The proportion of patients admitted at least once to skilled nursing facility (SNF), inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF), and readmission during the 0 to 90 or 0 to 365 day period after THA as well as the total all-cause payments during those periods were compared between patients in PPHFx groups and patients without PPHFx. After dual matching, a total 4460 patients for intraoperative and 2658 patients for postoperative PPHFx analyses were included. Utilization of any 90-day post-acute services was statistically significantly higher among patients in both PPHFx groups versus those without PPHFx: for intraoperative analysis, SNF (41.7% vs 30.8%), IRF (17.7% vs 10.1%), and readmissions (17.6% vs 11.5%); for postoperative analysis, SNF (64.5% vs 28.7%), IRF (22.6% vs 7.2%), and readmissions (92.8% vs 8.8%) (all P < .0001). The mean 90-day total all-cause payments were significantly higher in both intraoperative ($30,114 vs $21,229) and postoperative ($53,669 vs $ 19,817, P < .0001) PPHFx groups versus those without PPHFx. All trends were similar in the 365-day follow up. Patients with intraoperative and early postoperative PPHFx had statistically significantly higher resource utilization and payments than patients without PPHFx after primary THA. The differences observed during the 90-day follow up were continued over the 1-year period as well.