How can you tell whether a hip or knee replacement surgeon is actually good?
Dr. Matthew Sloan breaks down the five things patients should look for before choosing a joint replacement surgeon, including surgical volume, board certification, fellowship training, complication rates, revision rates, and the number almost nobody tells patients to ask about: patient-reported outcomes.
Patient-reported outcome measures track pain, function, and quality of life before and after surgery. They can reveal something an X-ray cannot: whether patients actually feel and function better after their joint replacement.
Dr. Sloan also explains why raw surgeon statistics can be misleading, how risk adjustment accounts for surgeons treating more complex patients, and why public reporting should avoid incentivizing surgeons to “cherry-pick” only healthier, lower-risk patients.
The episode also explores what a future national joint replacement scorecard could include: surgeon volume, training, complications, revisions, patient-reported improvement, and risk-adjusted comparisons with national benchmarks.
Until that kind of patient-facing system exists, patients may need to ask surgeons and health systems directly for their outcomes.
You can view Dr. Sloan’s own patient-reported outcomes at MatthewSloanMD.com.
The question to remember before surgery:
“Do you track patient-reported outcomes, and can I see them?”
