The Majority of Same-Day Booked Total Knee Arthroplasty Patients Who Have Greater Than 48-Hour Lengths of Stay Are Billed as Outpatient: Costly Lessons From a Formerly Inpatient-Only Hospital.

Abstract

Outpatient (OP) total knee arthroplasty (TKA) has grown rapidly since the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services removed TKA from the inpatient-only list in 2018. This shift led to increased adoption of OP and same-day discharge (SDD) models to reduce lengths of stay (LOS) amid declining reimbursement. The primary purposes of this study were to evaluate factors associated with booking-billing misclassification errors and to assess the financial implications of these designation errors. A retrospective review of prospectively collected institutional data from 2018 to 2024 identified 10,453 primary TKA patients. We analyzed booking-billing authorization misclassification rates and the effects of demographics, insurance type, day of surgery, and booking designation on LOS. A financial subanalysis examined LOS-based authorization discrepancies. There were 29.3% of OP-booked and 36.6% of SDD-booked patients who exceeded an LOS > 48 hours. In addition, 6.7% of OP-booked and 8.3% of SDD-booked patients were incorrectly billed as inpatient. The average LOS for SDD-booked patients was 43.1 ± 26.3 hours, with reductions observed since 2020. While Medicare/Medicaid patients showed improvements in LOS compliance from 2021 to 2024, booking-billing misclassification rates increased, particularly in commercially insured patients. Men (odds ratio 0.50, P < 0.001) and partnered individuals (odds ratio 0.60, P < 0.001) were less likely to stay > 48 hours. Misclassified cases cost the hospital > $1,000 per patient per day in unreimbursed care. The vast majority of OP/SDD-booked TKA patient stays exceeded 24 hours, and booking-billing discrepancies based on LOS have increased, yielding major financial losses. These misclassifications occurred most commonly in commercially insured patients. We saw reassuring improvements in discharging Medicare/Medicaid patients in an appropriately reimbursed time frame. Facilities, surgeons, and payers should recognize these discrepancies, identify predictors of authorization failures, and analyze their approaches to booking and billing to reflect their in-facility LOS.