Medicare pays for a lot of new joints, and the amount is growing.
Major joint replacement accounted for $6.6 billion in Medicare payments in fiscal 2013, according to new Medicare data released Monday. It was followed by severe sepsis, which resulted in $5.5 billion.
Joint replacement has ruled the charts since the federal government started tracking payment data in 2011. The fiscal 2013 figure rose nearly 4 percent from 2012 to 2013, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The agency measured the payments by the federal fiscal year, which concludes Sept. 30.
Payments for joints also rose 4.3 percent from 2011 to 2012, the data shows.
CMS also broke down which areas in the U.S. paid for the most joint replacements, tracked by the number of joint replacements per 1,000 hospital discharges. The agency used the address of the discharging hospital to determine the geographic area.
The highest amount of procedures occurred in the Midwestern and Rocky Mountain states. The lowest discharge rates were in New Mexico and parts of California and Nevada, CMS said.
After severe sepsis, total payments dropped significantly. For instance, heart failure ranked third with $2 billion in payments.
