Patient Perceptions Regarding Clinical Follow-Up After Total Joint Arthroplasty

Background: While considerable variation exists regarding patient follow-up after total joint arthroplasty (TJA), little is known regarding patient perceptions. Given the increasing need to deliver costefficient care, rising importance of satisfaction scores, and lengthened commutes with market consolidation, understanding patient perceptions and their predictors is important. Methods: A convenience sample of 75 patients was surveyed from the waiting room of an academic arthroplasty practice serving a large geographic catchment area regarding clinic travel and TJA followup perceptions. The sample resembled an expected arthroplasty population with 63% women, 46% between 50 and 64 years of age, and 42% having TJA in the past 2 years. Results: Median clinic travel time was 30 minutes (interquartile range, 15-75 minutes) with 15% finding this burdensome and 17% having transportation reliability concerns. Overall, 97% believed TJA follow-up necessary and 94% that it was important to their overall satisfaction with TJA. Regarding initial followup, 74% preferred a 2-week in-person visit, though 9% preferred a nurse phone call, and 8% a virtual visit. Demographic factors were not associated with follow-up preferences, though there were strong associations between preference for an alternative follow-up method and both increasing travel time (P = .04) and transportation reliability concerns (P = .03). Conclusions: While most patients preferred 2-week in-person follow-up, one-fourth preferred an alternative. Increasing travel time and decreased transportation reliability were associated with alternative follow-up preference. As market consolidation increases, it is important that patients have appropriate access to care which may involve more flexible follow-up pathways. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of The American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/ 4.0/).