Too Much Knee Surgery? Dirty Details of Medicare Review, and More (Orthopedics This Week)
Dr. Donald Shelbourne, founder of the Shelbourne Knee Center in Indianapolis, tellsOTW, “My partners and I have been discussing the interesting fact that at least half of the people who are told by other orthopedic surgeons that they require a total knee replacement do not need this operation. We are able to treat many of these people nonsurgically. I see patients all the time whose X-rays look bad, but who are not in pain. These are the people who know that you must keep moving your knee or it will get stiff and become painful. But most people just go to an orthopedic surgeon, that doctor says, ‘You need a total knee,’ and they follow that advice. It’s a real waste in so many ways.”
“Let’s say a 60-year-old comes in with an arthritic knee and says that it’s been hurting for about two months. The X-ray he brings, however, is from an entire year ago—and it is problematic. But it’s only now that he is having problems. It’s not right to go back and attribute all his pain to that bad X-ray. Stiffness in the knee is reversible if you have patients work with a physical therapist.”
“I have just hired...
