Practice Management Strategies Among Current Members of the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons

A survey was conducted at the 2015 annual meeting of the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons (AAHKS) to determine current practice management patterns among AAHKS members.

A survey was conducted by the session moderator during the annual AAHKS meeting using an audience response system. A series of practice management issues were reviewed with AAHKS members. The survey contained multiple choice and yes and no questions. The audience responses were collected in a central database and then immediately displayed for the audience to review.

The survey responses provided interesting data on a variety of topics including: surgeon demographics, surgical activity, practice status, use of physician extenders, sources of ancillary income, the use of electronic medical records and surgeon satisfaction. Interestingly, 51% of AAHKS members remain in private practice and fee for service remains the most common form of compensation (48%). The vast majority of AAHKS members do not perform hip arthroscopy (86%) or hip preservation procedures (87%).

Valuable information regarding practice patterns of AAHKS members was obtained from this survey. Future surveys will need to focus on 3 areas of activity: surgeon involvement in bundled payment programs frequency of submission of patient data to a joint registry and the frequency of outpatient total joint arthroplasty.