Cost-effectiveness in orthopedics: providing essential information to both physicians and health care policy makers for appropriate allocation of medical resources.

Cost-effective analysis has become an important tool in helping determine what procedures are both cost-effective and appropriate in today's cost control health care. The quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) is a standard measure for health-related quality-of-life in medical cost-effectiveness research. It can be used to compare different interventions to determine the cost-effectiveness of each procedure. Use of QALY to compare health care interventions has become the new gold standard. The key words arthroscopy, cost-effectiveness analysis, QALY, shoulder, hip, knee, ankle, elbow, wrist, and pubic symphysis were searched utilizing PubMed and an internet search engine. Cost/QALY ratios were determined and compared with other surgical procedures using techniques other than arthroscopy. Cost/QALYs were found for the shoulder, hip, knee, and elbow. The QALY for the shoulder was $13,092, for a simple knee was $5783, for a hip $21,700, and for an elbow $2031. General costs were found for the ankle, wrist, and pubic symphysis, that could be used to estimate QALYs without the complex formal calculation. On the basis of our findings, arthroscopy is an extremely cost-effective allocation of health care resources.