Despite the known increase of the cost of care when patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty are discharged to a skilled nursing facility, select facilities may disproportionately increase the cost of care compared with others, according to results published in The Journal of Arthroplasty.

Researchers identified 1,223 TKAs performed under bundled payment initiatives. Overall, 30.9% of patients were discharged to a skilled nursing facility. Of these patients, 246 patients selected one of the four most common skilled nursing facilities, according to results. Researchers investigated each of these four skilled nursing facilities for length of stay, cost of care and whether the overall target price for the episode of care was reached.