Over 500,000 Medicare patients have either hip or knee replacement surgeries each year. In 2010 alone, between Medicate patients and those with private health insurance, more than 332,000 patients had hip replacement surgery (costing $8 billion) and 700,000 patients had knee replacement surgery (costing $12 billion).

The tracking system looked at operations performed from June 2009 through July 2012. It looked at how often patients were readmitted within a month after replacement surgery. Serious complications from the surgery, like infections, blood clots, problems with the replacement joint or death, were also tracked. An average was determined by Medicare, and most hospitals fell in that average. Two hospitals from Connecticut fell on that list, with one falling into the best category and one falling into the worst category.

Several of the hospitals that fell in the worst list complained about the procedure that was used to determine these results. They said that the results were outdated given the time-frame that Medicare used to track results. New technologies and new treatment models were two examples of how treatments have improved over the past year or two.

Medicare is going to add the results of this tracking as part of its formula when deciding to penalize hospitals. After conducting a similar tracking on readmission rates for patients with heart attacks, heart failure and pneumonia, the federal agency has already penalized more than 2000 hospitals nationwide by paying those hospitals less. Once these new figures are factored in, a hospital could lose as much as 3 percent per patient stay.

If you’ve had side-effects or injuries from joint replacement surgery, contact an experienced Westport medical malpractice attorney today to find out what compensation you may be entitled to for pain and loss.

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