January 30, 2026
2 min watch
WAIKOLOA, Hawaii — At Orthopedics Today Hawaii, Ian Savage-Elliott, MD, offered tips to generate revenue with proper coding of in-office orthopedic visits.
“We recently conducted a survey, and more than 75% of the orthopedic surgeons surveyed were actually generating more revenue in the office than in surgery,” Savage-Elliott, orthopedic surgeon at Ochsner Health in New Orleans, told Healio.
“To make sure you get a level 4 or level 5 [visit], you need to find a new unsolved problem. You need to interpret some imaging, or you need to prescribe some medicine,” he said. “A level 5 visit, sometimes you can achieve those by encompassing multiple joints at one time.”
Savage-Elliott also recommended reducing postoperative visits after total joint replacement and limiting X-rays for injuries such as ankle fractures.
“There’s some great data out of Canada showing that, for hip and knee replacement, you really only need a call at 7 to 10 days and a follow-up visit at 5 to 6 weeks. Another way to reduce those unneeded postoperative visits is to use telehealth,” he said. “There’s no benefit to getting ankle X-rays after fractures at the 2-to-3-week mark, but there is the detriment of the time it takes and the potential cost savings therein.”
Sources/Disclosures
Source:
Healio Interviews
Disclosures:
Savage-Elliott reports no relevant financial disclosures.
Ask a clinical question and tap into Healio AI’s knowledge base.
- PubMed, enrolling/recruiting trials, guidelines
- Clinical Guidance, Healio CME, FDA news
- Healio’s exclusive daily news coverage of clinical data
<
Leave a Reply