Orthopedic Video Statistics

Key takeaways

1. Orthopedic surgeons and practices posting as themselves made 46.9% of the on-topic videos among YouTube’s most-viewed orthopedic surgeon, knee replacement and ACL surgery results and drew 57.8% of their views; one surgeon in Delhi drew 22.7% on his own (our read, Nov 8, 2026). (Mark Studios) See details
2. Videos of 60 seconds or less drew 78.4% of those views, reaction, ranking and guess-the-implant videos 24.8%, and U.S.-placed orthopedic surgeons and practices only 11.3%. (Mark Studios) See details
3. Across seven YouTube orthopedic video samples in peer-reviewed studies, the median DISCERN quality score was 33.6 of 80, and across seven YouTube and TikTok samples the median share made by physicians was 48% (our calculation). (Mark Studios) See details
4. 21,674 orthopedic surgeons billed Medicare Part B fee-for-service in 2024; Medicare’s payments to them fell 11.6% from 2019 before inflation, and 137 of them had a Palm Beach County address (our counts from CMS files). (CMS) See details
5. BLS put the median annual wage of U.S. wage-and-salary orthopedic surgeons at $358,550 in May 2025, 7.0 times the median for all occupations; in Florida the median was $473,750. (BLS) See details
6. CDC estimated that 53.2 million U.S. adults had diagnosed arthritis in 2019-2021; U.S. hospitals recorded 715,200 knee and 599,500 hip arthroplasty procedures during inpatient stays in 2018. (CDC) See details
7. The “673% growth in knee replacements by 2030” forecast comes from a 2007 projection built on 1990-2003 hospital data; a 2018 revision projected 1.26 million a year by 2030, yet Mayo Clinic News Network still printed 673% in 2024. (Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery) See details
8. Stryker says more than two million robotic Mako procedures have been performed, while only 4 of the 9 newest annual reports we read from listed orthopedic device makers use the word “video” at all. (Stryker) See details

Who makes the most-viewed orthopedic videos on YouTube?

Orthopedic surgeons and orthopedic practices posting as themselves made 46.9% of the on-topic videos among the most-viewed orthopedic surgeon, knee replacement and ACL surgery videos on YouTube on November 8, 2026, and drew 57.8% of their lifetime views (our count). We read YouTube’s own view-sorted search results for 'orthopedic surgeon', 'knee replacement' and 'ACL surgery' on November 8, 2026, the first four pages for each, through the YouTube Data API with no country filter, and classified every channel by hand from its own title, description and video text.

The three lists held 558 unique videos from 285 channels, with 1,241,387,490 lifetime views in all. They overlapped little: 30 videos were in two or more lists. The 'orthopedic surgeon' list held only 193 different videos, because YouTube returned some of them twice. Leaving out the videos from veterinary and pet channels about dogs’ ACL injuries leaves 554 on-topic videos with 1,240,636,677 views, and the median one had 424,757 views. View counts are lifetime snapshots and include ad views.

81 orthopedic surgeon or orthopedic practice channels appeared in the November 8, 2026 sample. 67 of them said in their own text that they were orthopedic surgeons or held an orthopedic surgery qualification such as MS (Ortho), DNB or MCh, and 14 gave only an orthopedic practice or clinic name; we did not check any licence or board certification. The median video from an orthopedic channel had 420,370.5 views (our count).

How much of orthopedic YouTube comes from a few channels?

More than half of it. The ten biggest channels drew 55.3% of the on-topic views in our November 8, 2026 sample, and the three biggest, Dr Pankaj Walecha, Complete Anatomy and Doctor Berwal, drew 34.6% (our count).

Dr Pankaj Walecha, a hip and knee replacement surgeon in Delhi, drew 22.7% of all on-topic views on his own, mostly with shorts that ask viewers to guess an implant. His 20-second 'GUESS THE IMPLANT NAME' was the most-viewed video in the sample, with 213,647,529 views. The most-viewed video from a U.S.-placed orthopedic surgeon was David Abbasi, MD’s 30-second 'How Do Surgeons Replace a Hip in Under an Hour?', with 10,260,104 views.

Where are the orthopedic channels based, and do Florida practices appear?

Mostly outside the United States, above all in India. Orthopedic surgeons and practices outside the United States drew 46.5% of the on-topic views in our November 8, 2026 sample, and orthopedic channels in India alone drew 41.2% (our count). U.S.-placed orthopedic surgeons and practices posted 17.9% of the on-topic videos but drew only 11.3% of the views.

Florida appears through a handful of channels. 4 channels placed themselves in Florida in their own text: David Abbasi, MD in Delray Beach, Dr. Alejandro Badia, MD in Doral, OrlandoOrtho and NYU Langone Health. Their on-topic videos had 13,525,704 views in all. David Abbasi, MD, an orthopedic sports surgeon in Delray Beach, was the only channel in Palm Beach, Broward or Martin County, and his two videos in the sample had 12,319,744 views. We found no Broward or Martin County channel in the sample.

Who else posts knee, hip and ACL videos?

Physical therapists and medical animators, above all. Physical therapists and physiotherapists posted 14.3% of the on-topic videos in our November 8, 2026 sample but drew 4.1% of the views (our count). Medical animation studios and animation channels drew 16.8% of the views, and patient-education animation libraries that license their videos, such as Viz Medical, Nucleus Medical Media and Understand.com, drew 7.6% on their own.

Hospitals reach far fewer viewers: Hospital for Special Surgery’s own channel had 3,183,462 views across its videos in the sample. Implant and device makers such as Arthrex, Johnson & Johnson MedTech and Conformis, with the other brands and sellers, drew 0.7% of the views. We do not name the people behind patient-story channels.

What does each orthopedic search return?

Each search returns a different mix of channels. Orthopedic surgeons’ own channels drew 73.7% of the views of the on-topic videos in YouTube’s most-viewed results for 'orthopedic surgeon' on November 8, 2026, against 42.9% for 'ACL surgery' (our count).

In the 'ACL surgery' list, medical animation channels drew 30.8% of the views, and physical therapists and physiotherapists posted 21.9% of the videos (our count).

What are the most-viewed orthopedic videos about?

Knee replacement and the ACL. Titles about knee replacement made 33.9% of the on-topic videos on November 8, 2026, and titles about the ACL or other knee ligaments 31.8% (our count, a regex on titles with every match read by hand).

Recovery advice is plentiful but little watched: recovery and rehab titles made 31.2% of the videos and drew 7.8% of the views. Formats built around the surgeon do the reverse. Reaction, ranking and guess-the-implant videos made 5.4% of the videos but drew 24.8% of the views, and titles that name the word orthopedic or ortho drew 43.8%.

How long and how new are the most-viewed orthopedic videos?

Short videos take most of the views. Videos of 60 seconds or less were 42.6% of the on-topic videos on November 8, 2026 but drew 78.4% of the views, and the median short had 811,884.5 views (our count). 43.1% of the on-topic videos were published in 2024 or later.

YouTube’s altered or synthetic content field was absent from all 558 videos, and only 2 were marked made for kids (our read of videos.list part=status). Five channels in the sample say in their own descriptions that they use AI-generated or AI-powered visuals; their videos had 22,404,304 views, and none carried the field.

How often do U.S. orthopedic surgeons post to YouTube?

Unevenly: the median U.S. orthopedic channel in our sample posted 23.5 videos in the year to November 8, 2026. We read the full year of uploads of every U.S.-placed orthopedic surgeon or orthopedic practice channel in the search sample, and together they posted 3,706 videos (our count, channels.list, the uploads playlists and videos.list). 10 of them posted 100 or more videos in the year and 10 posted none, among them Matthew Harb, M.D, the channel with the most subscribers, 1,480,000. The three busiest, Shawn Baker MD, David Abbasi, MD and Bone Doctor, posted 45.5% of all the uploads.

Those uploads had a median of 5,516.5 views, and 53.1% ran 60 seconds or less. Practice and group channels, such as Twin Cities Orthopedics, Plymouth Bay Orthopedic Associates and Summit Medical Institute, did far worse than individual surgeons: their uploads had a median of 209 views, against 6,886 for individual surgeons’ channels. In Florida, David Abbasi, MD in Delray Beach, Palm Beach County, posted 585 videos in the year with a median of 27,666 views; Dr. Alejandro Badia, MD in Doral posted 107 and OrlandoOrtho 20.

How good are the orthopedic videos patients find on YouTube and TikTok?

Mostly fair to poor: across seven YouTube orthopedic video samples in six peer-reviewed studies published from 2019 to 2025, the median DISCERN score was 33.6 out of 80 (our calculation). DISCERN rates how reliable and complete health information is, on a scale where 80 is best. Each study sampled the top results for one topic on one date, and each scored videos its own way, so the table gives every study’s year, platform, sample and finding side by side. GQS is the Global Quality Score (1 to 5) and JAMA the four-point JAMA benchmark for authorship, sources, disclosure and dates.

On YouTube, physicians make a large share of orthopedic videos. Across the seven samples above that counted physician uploaders (six on YouTube, one on TikTok), the median share was 48% (our calculation). TikTok is different: across three TikTok studies of knee injuries, scoliosis and pediatric fractures, the median share made by or involving physicians or other health care providers was 12.1% (our calculation).

The videos reach large audiences, and popularity does not track quality. The 153 pediatric scoliosis videos searched in December 2020 had been viewed 28.5 million times (Spine Deformity). The 234 TikTok knee injury videos collected on September 1, 2024 averaged 699,235 views each (Arthroscopy, Sports Medicine, and Rehabilitation). In the 2019 rotator cuff repair study, physicians uploaded 48% of videos, but the most popular were uploaded by patients and commercial websites (Orthopaedics & Traumatology: Surgery & Research); in the 2023 shoulder replacement study, quality had no link to views or likes (Arthroscopy, Sports Medicine, and Rehabilitation). For video studies of rehabilitation exercises, see our physical therapy video statistics; for general medical video, our healthcare video statistics.

Do education videos help orthopedic surgery patients?

For knowledge, the small trials mostly say yes: in a 2024 randomized trial of 100 total knee arthroplasty patients in UK hospitals, those shown a video before consent scored 8.73 of 10 on a knowledge test against 7.68 without it (Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research). The trials below are small, often single-center, and measured knowledge with the authors’ own questionnaires soon after the video.

How many orthopedic visits moved to video, and did it last?

Almost none before 2020, then a large minority: U.S. commercial insurance claims in the MarketScan database put telemedicine at 0.020% of musculoskeletal outpatient visits from 2014 to 2018 (International Journal of Telemedicine and Applications). In spring 2020, 106 of 168 responding U.S. academic orthopaedic programs were using telehealth, and 83% of them named COVID-19 as the reason they started (Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons). At one U.S. Level 1 trauma center’s orthopaedic trauma clinic, telehealth went from none of 340 visits the month before the stay-at-home order to 37% of 233 visits the month after (Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research).

Use stayed well above the old baseline but fell from its peak. Of 60,368 spine patients seen at an urban U.S. orthopedic specialty hospital from April 2020 to April 2021, 32.4% had a telemedicine visit (Spine); after the spring 2020 lockdown peak, telemedicine still averaged about 29% of visits a month. By July 2022 to January 2023, teleconsultations were 8% of appointments for the 15 orthopaedic surgeons with the most teleconsultations at a Midwest academic health system (Digital Health). In a 2022 national survey of 280 French orthopedic and trauma surgeons, use of video teleconsultation rose from 8.9% before the pandemic to 55.3% during it (Orthopaedics & Traumatology: Surgery & Research), 6.2 times as many surgeons (our calculation), but 98.1% of the 155 who had used it found it less satisfying than an in-person visit for the clinical examination (Orthopaedics & Traumatology: Surgery & Research). These are single centers and one national survey, not a national U.S. count.

Are patients satisfied with orthopedic video visits, and do they save time or money?

Patients are about as satisfied as in person, and they save travel time: a 2021 meta-analysis of eight randomized trials (1,008 patients) found no difference in patient or surgeon satisfaction between telemedicine and in-person orthopaedic assessments, and telemedicine saved patients 180 minutes once travel time was counted (Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research). Telemedicine in that review meant any remote care, including telephone; the trials were at high risk of bias and did not report safety outcomes well. After hip and knee replacement, 58.3% of 259 patients who rated a postoperative telemedicine visit in a 2022 NYU Langone Orthopedics study were extremely satisfied and 32.0% satisfied (Telemedicine and e-Health).

Cost results differ by setting. In a Norwegian randomized trial of 389 orthopedic outpatients, video consultations at a remote clinic in Northern Norway saved €18,616 a year at 300 consultations, counting patients’ travel (Journal of Medical Internet Research). At a U.S. academic institution, a 2023 costing study of return visits from June to September 2021 found a virtual visit cost a median USD 140 against USD 127 in person (Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research), 10.2% more (our calculation), because surgeons spent longer on virtual visits; the difference was not statistically significant.

The physical exam is the weak point. In a 2022 U.S. study of 32 new shoulder patients examined both in person and by a recorded, non-physician-guided video exam in 2020, the two agreed on 76.4% of 40 maneuvers on average; range of motion transferred well and instability tests poorly (Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery).

What do virtual fracture clinics achieve?

They discharge many patients without a clinic visit, with no rise in returns found so far: Glasgow’s redesigned fracture pathway managed 3,374 patients in its first year, against 2,840 sent to a traditional fracture clinic the year before, with no increase in injury-related unplanned emergency department returns (BMJ Open). The Glasgow Royal Infirmary pathway combined standard treatment pathways, leaflet-supported discharge and a virtual fracture clinic review; patients with minor, stable fractures are discharged with no further follow-up arranged. From 2009 to 2014 the hospital’s outpatient attendance fell 15% against a 5% national fall (Bone & Joint Research). “Virtual” here means a review of the case by protocol, not necessarily a video call.

At one UK hospital, 57.37% of 17,269 virtual fracture clinic referrals from September 2017 to February 2020 were discharged virtually, and 7.48% of those came back to the fracture clinic (Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England), so about 53.1% of all referrals were discharged virtually and stayed discharged (our calculation). Across 51 UK virtual fracture clinics, direct discharge rose from 30% of patients in May 2019 to 46% during the first COVID-19 lockdown in May 2020, with no change in unplanned returns (Injury).

How many orthopedic patients look online before they see a surgeon?

Two in five or more, in U.S. clinic surveys: 39.5% of 329 patients of six orthopedic surgeons in five multispecialty groups had searched the internet before their first visit, in a survey published in 2022 (JMIR Formative Research). In a survey of 185 patients at an East Coast sports medicine clinic, 54% had researched their condition online before the consultation, in a study published in 2018 (Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine). Of 226 patients of four orthopedic hand surgeons surveyed from October 2015 to June 2016, 45% had done online research before the visit; WebMD was their most popular site (HAND).

Social media now plays a part. In a survey of 267 orthopedic and trauma patients at five German clinics from April to December 2023, 51.3% had used social media for orthopedic questions, with YouTube among the most used platforms (Frontiers in Digital Health). In a 2025 survey of 636 patients in the clinics of 13 U.S. orthopaedic surgeons, 29% said social media content was likely or very likely to influence which physician they chose (Arthroscopy, Sports Medicine, and Rehabilitation). Of 159 patients of two U.S. sports medicine surgeons surveyed from November 2021 to January 2022, 46% wanted to see educational videos on their surgeon’s social media page (Arthroscopy, Sports Medicine, and Rehabilitation).

How many orthopedic surgeons are on social media and YouTube?

A minority, and few on YouTube: of 2,455 American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons members checked as of June 15, 2021, 22% had a professional Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or YouTube account, and those who did had higher ratings on physician review websites (The Journal of Arthroplasty). In a 2023 study of 2,870 U.S. orthopaedic sports medicine surgeons in the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, YouTube was the least used platform at 10%, against 56% on LinkedIn (Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine). In a 2021 study of 469 U.S. academic hand surgeons, 4.05% were on Instagram (Journal of Hand Surgery Global Online). Team doctors are more visible: 65.7% of 505 physicians for NFL, NHL, MLB and NBA teams, most of them orthopaedic surgeons, had a social media presence, mostly on LinkedIn (Arthroscopy, Sports Medicine, and Rehabilitation). All four studies found accounts by online search, and none measured how often surgeons post video.

How many orthopedic surgeons are there in the U.S.?

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) counted 18,464 active orthopedic surgeons in the United States on December 31, 2021, from the AMA Physician Masterfile (AAMC). It counted a further 3,065 active physicians in its separate Sports Medicine (Orthopedic Surgery) category (AAMC). The AAMC’s newer counts sit in an interactive dashboard that cannot be linked table by table, so this page cites its archived 2022 report.

Other counters find more orthopedic surgeons because they count a wider group. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), the specialty’s association, sent its 2018 census survey to 30,141 orthopaedic physicians on its records (AAOS Now), up from 29,613 in 2016 (AAOS); its lists include retired emeritus fellows. Craddock and colleagues counted 30,243 orthopaedic surgeons in HRSA’s 2022 Area Health Resource Files (JB & JS Open Access, 2025) (JB & JS Open Access). HRSA’s workforce model, as analysed by Silvestre and colleagues in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (2026), put the 2024 supply at 32,310 full-time equivalents (JAAOS). The American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery (ABOS) publishes exam results but no count of its board-certified diplomates on its public pages. The BLS employment counts are in the workforce section, and our count of orthopedic surgeons who bill Medicare is in the Medicare section; both are counted a different way again.

How many orthopedic surgeons are women, and how old are they?

Women were 5.9% of active U.S. orthopedic surgeons at the end of 2021, according to the AAMC (AAMC), and 60.6% were aged 55 or older (AAMC). The AAMC’s report splits ages at 55; it prints no share aged 65 or older. The AAMC’s 2026 workforce dashboard puts women at 7.0% of active orthopedic surgeons in 2025 and 8.1% of its sports medicine (orthopedic surgery) group, the two lowest shares of any specialty (AAMC). The AAOS’s own census gives a similar picture: its 2016 membership was 6.5% female (AAOS), and the average age of practicing orthopaedists was 55.24 years (AAOS). In its 2018 survey the average was 56.5 years (AAOS Now). Both AAOS surveys were answered by a minority of the orthopaedists sent them, and the AAOS sells the full reports or keeps them for members; these are the association’s own figures. Women are a larger share of trainees, as the pipeline section shows.

Where do orthopedic surgeons practice: private groups, hospitals or solo?

In the AAOS’s 2016 census, the largest group of respondents practiced in orthopaedic private groups; 17% worked in a hospital or medical center (AAOS). By the AAOS’s 2018 survey only 12 percent of orthopaedic surgeons were in solo private practice, against nearly one in four in 2006 (AAOS Now). Among joint replacement surgeons, 31% of American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons (AAHKS) members answering an app survey at the association’s 2025 annual meeting said they were hospital-employed, the Journal of Arthroplasty reported; private practice was still the most common setting. The abstract gives no sample size (Journal of Arthroplasty).

How much of orthopedics has private equity bought?

Private equity firms had bought practices employing 4.8% of U.S. orthopaedists by 2023, according to Segal and colleagues in JB & JS Open Access (2026), who matched PitchBook deals for 2016–2023 to Medicare provider records (JB & JS Open Access). 77.5% of those acquisitions came from 2021 to 2023 (JB & JS Open Access).

Earlier counts found fewer deals. Boddapati and colleagues (JAAOS, 2022) counted 41 orthopaedic practices and surgeon groups bought by private equity and other investment firms between 2004 and 2019 (JAAOS). Acquisition volume grew at a compound annual rate of 29.2% over that period (JAAOS), and 51.2% of the deals were in the South (JAAOS). Mikhail and colleagues, searching four business databases for 2010–2019, found that only 7.4% of orthopaedic practice acquisitions were backed by private equity; hospitals and health systems drove most of the consolidation (JAAOS Global Research & Reviews). Each study counted only deals that were disclosed.

How many orthopedic surgeons practice in Florida, and in Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties?

Florida’s Department of Health counted 1,059 physicians in orthopedic medicine providing direct patient care in its 2023–25 physician workforce survey, which physicians answer when they renew a license (Florida DOH). The survey counts respondents, not every licensee, and its category is “orthopedic medicine”.

In the 2023-25 survey, Palm Beach County had 119 of them (Florida DOH), Broward County 82 (Florida DOH) and Martin County 18 (Florida DOH). Together the three counties had 219, or 20.7% of the state total (our calculation). In the same survey, 178 Florida physicians in orthopedic medicine said they plan to stop direct patient care in Florida or change specialty within five years (Florida DOH), equal to about 16.8% of the direct-care count (our calculation; the two numbers come from different tables of the same survey).

Counting licensees instead, Burke and colleagues found 2,117 orthopedic surgeons with a Florida practice address in the state’s practitioner profiles (Cureus, 2026) (Cureus). 19 of Florida’s counties had no practicing orthopedic surgeon, most of them non-metropolitan (Cureus). The AAOS counted 1,928 orthopaedic surgeons in Florida in 2016 (AAOS).

Are there enough orthopedic surgeons, and where are they missing?

The AAOS put U.S. orthopaedic surgeon density at 9.20 per 100,000 people in 2015 (AAOS). Coverage is uneven: Craddock and colleagues write that over half of U.S. counties lack an orthopaedic surgeon, though their abstract does not give the count behind the statement (JB & JS Open Access). HRSA’s model projects orthopaedic surgeon supply to fall by 2037 from 32,310 full-time equivalents in 2024 while demand rises, according to Silvestre and colleagues (JAAOS). In 2024 projected demand was already 1,150 full-time equivalents above supply (our calculation). These are model projections, not head counts.

Can an orthopedic surgeon’s channel get YouTube’s health source label?

Yes, if the channel clears YouTube’s bar: as read in November 2026, a licensed professional’s channel needs more than 1,500 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months to qualify for YouTube’s health source information panels and health content shelves (YouTube). The eligible professions start with “Licensed Doctor (eligible to practice medicine in the relevant country)”, which covers orthopedic surgeons (YouTube). YouTube excludes “certain types of for profit healthcare brands” and channels run by drug, insurance or medical device companies, the group that includes implant and surgical robot makers (YouTube). Individual U.S. professionals have been able to apply since October 27th, 2022 (YouTube).

What do Google’s ad rules say about orthopedic practice ads?

Google Ads lists Health among the sensitive interest categories whose ads face targeting restrictions, as read in November 2026 (Google). In the United States, telemedicine providers that prescribe can advertise only if accredited by LegitScript (Google).

How many orthopaedic surgery residents are in training?

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) accredited 209 orthopaedic surgery residency programs in academic year 2024–2025 (ACGME), with 4,610 active residents (ACGME). Women were 23.9% of orthopaedic surgery residents, one of the lowest shares of any specialty (ACGME), far above the 5.9% of active orthopedic surgeons the AAMC counted in 2021. Women were 23.77% of applicants to orthopedic surgery residency in 2024–2025, the lowest of five competitive surgical specialties Sharma and colleagues tracked (World Journal of Surgery, 2026) (World Journal of Surgery). 85.1% of orthopaedic residents had graduated from U.S. MD-granting (LCME-accredited) medical schools (ACGME).

How many orthopaedic surgeons train in sports medicine, hand and other fellowships?

Orthopaedic sports medicine is the largest ACGME-accredited orthopaedic fellowship: 219 fellows were training in it in academic year 2024–2025 (ACGME). Hand surgery programs listed under orthopaedic surgery had 163 fellows (ACGME). The ACGME counts only the fellowships it accredits.

How many orthopaedic surgeons pass the board exams?

83% of examinees passed the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery’s (ABOS) Part I written exam in 2026, the board reports (ABOS). That is 11 percentage points below the 2025 pass rate (our calculation). 754 surgeons passed the ABOS Part II oral exam in 2025, the step that completes board certification (ABOS). 334 surgeons sat the ABOS Orthopaedic Sports Medicine subspecialty exam in 2025, a jump the board ties to a rule change that lets surgeons take it straight after an accredited fellowship (ABOS).

How many orthopedic surgeons bill Medicare?

CMS’s Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners file lists 21,674 orthopedic surgeons who billed Medicare Part B fee-for-service in 2024 (CMS). The same file holds 1.3 million provider records of all specialties (1,296,739) (CMS). It is built from original Medicare claims only. Medicare Advantage claims are not in it, so a surgeon who saw only Medicare Advantage patients is not counted, and every count in this section understates the work as Medicare Advantage grows.

The number barely moved in five years. CMS’s 2019 file lists 21,638 orthopedic surgeons (CMS), so the count rose 0.2% by 2024 (our calculation). Florida grew faster: the count rose 5.4%, from 1,344 in 2019 (CMS) to 1,417 in 2024 (CMS). Florida has 6.5% of the orthopedic surgeons billing Medicare in the United States (our calculation). Of the five states in the table, only California and Texas have more.

CMS gives each provider one specialty type, and two smaller types sit beside ‘Orthopedic Surgery’. CMS lists 1,658 hand surgeons (type ‘Hand Surgery’) who billed Medicare Part B fee-for-service in 2024 (CMS), up from 1,534 in 2019 (CMS); 129 of the 2024 hand surgeons are in Florida (CMS). The ‘Sports Medicine’ type grew from 1,332 providers in 2019 (CMS) to 1,950 in 2024 (CMS), but it includes sports physicians who do not operate. Spine surgeons who bill as neurosurgeons are not in any of these counts. No other orthopedic type appears in either year’s file.

Most orthopedic surgeons work in cities: 87.8% of those billing Medicare in 2024 have a practice address that CMS codes as a metropolitan core (RUCA 1) (our calculation from the CMS file).

How much does Medicare pay orthopedic surgeons?

Medicare paid orthopedic surgeons $2.80 billion (2,797,377,647) for Part B fee-for-service services in 2024, by our sum of CMS’s by Provider file. That is 11.6% less than the $3.16 billion (3,164,399,279) it paid them in 2019, before inflation (our calculation). The file cannot tell a fall in work apart from patients moving to Medicare Advantage, whose claims it leaves out.

The typical surgeon’s Medicare income fell too. The median orthopedic surgeon received $96,684 from Medicare Part B fee-for-service in 2024, down from $114,150 in 2019, before inflation (our calculation). The median Florida orthopedic surgeon received $121,820 in 2024 (our calculation). Medicare paid Florida orthopedic surgeons $257.5 million (257,536,729) in 2024 and $282.8 million (282,791,732) in 2019 (our calculation). It paid hand surgeons, a separate CMS type, $220.9 million (220,872,098) in 2024 (our calculation).

A service in CMS’s file is a billed unit, not a visit. Orthopedic surgeons billed 75.5 million services (75,515,071) in 2024, up from 54.6 million (54,617,529) in 2019 (our calculation). Drug units count as services: the steroid methylprednisolone acetate (HCPCS J1010) is billed per 1 mg, and orthopedic surgeons’ lines alone hold 27.8 million J1010 services (27,849,394) in 2024 (our calculation from CMS’s provider-and-service file).

Few orthopedic surgeons draw very large Medicare sums. 36 received $1 million or more from Medicare Part B fee-for-service in 2024, against 40 in 2019, and the 2024 group received 2.1% of Medicare Part B payments to orthopedic surgeons (our calculation). The top 10% of orthopedic surgeons by payment received 32.0% (our calculation).

How many knee and hip replacements does Medicare pay for?

292,550 Medicare beneficiaries received a total knee arthroplasty (HCPCS 27447) in a facility setting such as a hospital or surgery center in 2024, across all specialties, in CMS’s by Geography and Service file (CMS). The file counts Medicare Part B fee-for-service claims only, with no Medicare Advantage. For the same code it lists 566,598 facility services (CMS), billed by 20,171 providers (CMS). Services are not operations. CMS counts every professional claim line billed under the code: the surgeon’s, an assistant’s, and the facility claim of a surgery center, which CMS lists as the provider type ‘Ambulatory Surgical Center’. The beneficiary count is the better guide to how many patients had the operation. Only 4,989 knee replacement services were billed in an office setting in 2024 (CMS), against 1,590 in 2019 (CMS).

For total hip arthroplasty (HCPCS 27130), CMS’s 2024 file lists 172,372 beneficiaries (CMS) and 322,819 facility services (CMS), billed by 17,461 providers (CMS). 2,372 hip replacement services were billed in an office setting in 2024 (CMS), against 94 in 2019 (CMS).

Patient numbers changed less than service counts. Facility services of total knee arthroplasty rose 11.8% from 506,981 in 2019 (CMS; our calculation), but the number of beneficiaries was 293,186 in 2019 (CMS), against 292,550 in 2024. Surgery-center facility claims are part of the 2024 count: ambulatory surgery centers billed 47,727 knee replacement services on non-suppressed lines of CMS’s 2024 provider-and-service file (our calculation). Facility hip replacement services rose 16.2% from 277,926 in 2019 (CMS; our calculation), and beneficiaries from 163,182 (CMS) to 172,372. Surgery centers billed 22,491 hip replacement services in 2024 (our calculation).

The average Medicare payment per facility knee replacement service was $1,181.73 in 2024 (CMS), up from $723.21 in 2019 (CMS). For hip replacement it was $1,126.48 in 2024 (CMS), against $723.95 in 2019 (CMS). These averages mix surgeons’ fees, assistants’ fees and surgery centers’ facility fees, so they are not a surgeon’s fee. On their own lines, orthopedic surgeons were paid an average of $970.62 per knee replacement service in 2024. Surgery centers’ facility claims received 50.8% of the Medicare payments on non-suppressed knee replacement lines (our calculation from CMS’s provider-and-service file).

Florida accounted for 7.2% of facility knee replacement services Medicare Part B paid for in 2024 (our calculation): 40,892 services (CMS), up from 34,173 in 2019 (CMS).

Knee arthroscopy with meniscectomy fell the most of these codes, by 33.1% in fee-for-service claims from 2019 to 2024 (our calculation). Medicare also paid for 404,171 major joint injections (HCPCS 20610) in a facility setting in 2024 (CMS). The two spine codes in the table include neurosurgeons’ claims as well as orthopedic surgeons’. None of these falls proves fewer operations, because Medicare Advantage patients are not in the files.

Who bills Medicare for knee and hip replacements?

Orthopedic surgeons billed 55.1% of the total knee arthroplasty services and 57.6% of the total hip arthroplasty services on all non-suppressed lines of CMS’s 2024 provider-and-service file (our calculation; Medicare Part B fee-for-service only). Physician assistants and nurse practitioners held 34.7% of the knee replacement services (our calculation); the file does not say in what role they billed. Surgery centers’ facility claims make up most of the rest.

6,467 orthopedic surgeons billed Medicare for a total knee arthroplasty in a facility setting to 11 or more beneficiaries in 2024 (CMS), and 4,498 for a total hip arthroplasty (CMS). Their own lines hold 294,263 knee replacement services, for which Medicare paid $285.6 million (285,618,939), and 164,713 hip replacement services, paid $160.4 million (160,372,935) (our calculation from CMS’s provider-and-service file).

What do orthopedic surgeons bill Medicare for most?

Total knee arthroplasty brought orthopedic surgeons more Medicare Part B fee-for-service money in 2024 than any other code, $285.6 million (285,618,939) on their lines (our calculation from CMS’s provider-and-service file). Office visits come next. Established-patient visits of moderate complexity (HCPCS 99214) came to 2.8 million services (2,787,536) and $254.3 million (254,338,068); visits of low complexity (HCPCS 99213) came to 3.6 million services (3,594,397) and $228.2 million (228,178,887) (our calculation).

Joint injections are the most common procedure. Orthopedic surgeons’ lines hold 2.1 million major joint injections or aspirations without ultrasound guidance (HCPCS 20610, 2,131,589 services), paid $107.6 million (107,637,017) (our calculation). 12,071 orthopedic surgeons billed 20610 in an office setting to 11 or more beneficiaries in 2024 (CMS). Their lines also hold 59,191 total shoulder arthroplasty services (HCPCS 23472) (our calculation).

CMS hides any line with fewer than 11 beneficiaries. The non-suppressed lines hold 74.1% of the Medicare payments to orthopedic surgeons in CMS’s by Provider file, so the code totals here are floors (our calculation).

How often do orthopedic surgeons bill Medicare for telephone or video visits?

Rarely, as far as CMS’s files show. Orthopedic surgeons’ non-suppressed lines held 19,213 audio-only telephone evaluation and management services (HCPCS 99441-99443) in 2024, against 3.6 million low-complexity office visits (3,594,397) (our calculation from CMS’s provider-and-service file; Medicare Part B fee-for-service only). The file has no field that marks telehealth, so video visits billed under ordinary office-visit codes cannot be told apart from in-person visits.

How many orthopedic surgeons bill Medicare in Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties?

137 orthopedic surgeons with a Palm Beach County practice address billed Medicare Part B fee-for-service in 2024, 137 in Broward County and 19 in Martin County (our count from CMS’s by Provider file, matching each ZIP code to a county with the Census Bureau’s 2020 ZIP-county relationship file). The three counties hold 20.7% of Florida’s orthopedic surgeons billing Medicare (our calculation). Miami-Dade County has 141 (our count). A surgeon with offices in two counties appears once, at the address CMS lists, and surgeons who see only Medicare Advantage patients are not counted.

Palm Beach County stands out. Medicare paid its orthopedic surgeons $33.0 million (33,001,740) in 2024, more than twice the $15.0 million (14,993,951) paid to Broward’s, which had the same number of surgeons (our calculation). The number in Palm Beach rose from 125 in 2019 to 137 in 2024, and in Martin County from 12 to 19 (our count).

How many orthopedic surgeons work in the U.S.?

Orthopedic surgeons (except pediatric) held about 15,500 U.S. jobs in 2025, counting the self-employed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook (BLS). BLS’s Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey of employers counted 14,100 wage and salary orthopedic surgeon jobs (SOC 29-1242) in May 2025 (BLS), with a relative standard error of 10.9% (BLS). The OEWS survey leaves out surgeons who own unincorporated practices and pay themselves from profits; BLS’s Employment Projections put the self-employed share of U.S. orthopedic surgeon jobs at 5.5% in 2025 (BLS). Owners of incorporated practices who draw a salary count as wage and salary workers.

Orthopedic surgeons held 28.6% of the U.S. wage and salary surgeon jobs BLS counted in May 2025, and 1.8% of all wage and salary physician and surgeon jobs (our calculation from the OEWS counts in the table below).

How much do orthopedic surgeons earn?

The median annual wage for U.S. wage and salary orthopedic surgeons was $358,550 in May 2025, per BLS OEWS (BLS). The mean for the same group was $373,570 (BLS). That median was 7.0 times the $50,980 median for all U.S. wage and salary occupations in May 2025 (BLS) (our calculation). These OEWS figures cover wages and salaries only, not practice owners’ profits.

Pay for U.S. orthopedic surgeons is spread wide. One in ten wage and salary orthopedic surgeons earned less than $84,170 a year in May 2025 (BLS), and one in ten earned more than $659,290 (BLS). BLS printed both percentiles as values for May 2025; no orthopedic surgeon wage cell that year carried its top-code footnote.

How do orthopedic surgeons compare with other surgeons and physicians?

BLS OEWS counts four surgeon occupations. In May 2025 orthopedic surgeons were the second largest of them by wage and salary jobs in the U.S., after surgeons, all other, and their median wage was below that of pediatric surgeons and of surgeons, all other:

Where do orthopedic surgeons work?

Offices of physicians (NAICS 6211) employed 10,290 U.S. wage and salary orthopedic surgeons in May 2025, per BLS OEWS (BLS): 73.0% of the national total (our calculation). Their median annual wage in physician offices was $356,070 in May 2025 (BLS).

BLS did not release a May 2025 estimate of how many orthopedic surgeons work in U.S. general medical and surgical hospitals (NAICS 6221), but it did publish their pay there: a median annual wage of $500,580 (BLS), 40.6% above the May 2025 physician-office median (our calculation). BLS has no separate industry for orthopedic practices; they are counted inside offices of physicians, the shared industry described in the next section.

How many orthopedic surgeons work in Florida and South Florida, and what do they earn?

BLS OEWS estimated 580 wage and salary orthopedic surgeon jobs in Florida in May 2025 (BLS), 4.1% of the U.S. count (our calculation). The relative standard error of that Florida estimate was 31.6% (BLS), so treat the May 2025 count as rough. Florida’s location quotient for orthopedic surgeons was 0.64 in May 2025 (BLS): the occupation made up a smaller share of Florida’s wage and salary jobs than of all U.S. jobs.

Florida’s wage and salary orthopedic surgeons had a median annual wage of $473,750 in May 2025 (BLS), 32.1% above the U.S. median for the occupation (our calculation). Their mean annual wage in Florida was $462,360 in May 2025 (BLS).

For the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro area, which holds Palm Beach and Broward counties, BLS did not release a May 2025 count of orthopedic surgeon jobs but did publish their pay: a median annual wage of $396,920 (BLS) and a mean of $425,660 (BLS). BLS published no May 2025 orthopedic surgeon estimate for the Port St. Lucie metro area, which holds Martin County, and OEWS publishes no estimates for the West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Boynton Beach or Fort Lauderdale metropolitan divisions.

How fast is orthopedic surgeon employment expected to grow?

BLS projects U.S. orthopedic surgeon employment to grow 4.0% from 2025 to 2035, per its Employment Projections (BLS), against 3.5% for all occupations over the same decade (BLS). The Occupational Outlook Handbook puts that at 16,100 U.S. orthopedic surgeon jobs in 2035, up from 15,500 in 2025 (BLS). BLS expects about 0.4 thousand openings for U.S. orthopedic surgeons each year from 2025 to 2035, from growth and from replacing surgeons who retire or leave the occupation (BLS).

How many physician offices of all specialties are there in the U.S.?

Orthopedic practices are counted inside offices of physicians (NAICS 621111), an industry shared with every physician specialty except mental health specialists, so every figure in this section covers all physician offices, not orthopedic practices alone. Other specialty pages, such as our dermatology video statistics, carry the same shared figures. BLS’s Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), which counts employers covered by unemployment insurance, averaged 226,698 private physician offices of all specialties in the U.S. in 2025 (BLS), up from 204,988 in 2019 (BLS): a rise of 10.6% (our calculation).

U.S. private physician offices of all specialties employed an average of 2.9 million people (2,904,306) in 2025 (BLS). Average annual pay across all jobs in those offices, from front desk to physician, was $116,597 in 2025 (BLS).

The Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns counted 204,617 U.S. employer physician offices of all specialties in 2023, with 2.7 million employees (2,706,297) in mid-March (Census). Census’s Nonemployer Statistics counted another 186,842 U.S. physician-office businesses with no paid staff in 2023 (Census), so nonemployers were 47.7% of the physician-office businesses Census counted that year (our calculation). A nonemployer is any business with no paid employees and at least $1,000 in receipts, so the 2023 count is not a count of full-time practices. Nonemployer Statistics counted 190,427 such U.S. businesses in 2024, with receipts of $19,101,964 thousand (Census).

How much revenue do physician offices of all specialties earn, and who pays?

U.S. employer offices of physicians of all specialties (NAICS 621111) had receipts of $630,209,309 thousand (about $630 billion) in 2022 across 201,360 establishments, per the 2022 Economic Census, the Census Bureau’s full count of businesses every five years (Census). The 2022 Economic Census publishes no orthopedic line: it splits physician-office receipts by the ICD-10 chapter of the patient’s primary diagnosis, and none of its 2022 product lines for the industry names orthopedics.

Census publishes revenue by payer only for all U.S. physician offices (NAICS 6211, which also includes psychiatrists’ offices). Of their $640,432,147 thousand in 2022 receipts (Census):

The 2022 Economic Census does not split any payer’s spending by specialty, so these shares describe all U.S. physician offices, not orthopedic practices.

How many physician offices of all specialties earn money from telemedicine?

86,466 of the 201,360 U.S. employer offices of physicians of all specialties (NAICS 621111) reported some revenue from telemedicine services in 2022, per the 2022 Economic Census (Census): 42.9% of them (our calculation). The 2022 table counts offices with any telemedicine revenue; it does not say how much of their revenue came from it, and it does not break out orthopedics.

How much do physician offices of all specialties spend on advertising?

U.S. offices of physicians of all specialties (NAICS 6211) spent $1,815,721 thousand, about $1.8 billion, on advertising and promotion in 2024, per the Census Bureau’s Annual Integrated Economic Survey (Census). That was 0.28% of their $652,560,160 thousand in total 2024 operating expenses (our calculation). Census does not publish advertising spending for orthopedic practices or for NAICS 621111 on its own.

How many physician offices of all specialties are there in Florida and in Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties?

Florida averaged 21,918 private physician offices of all specialties (NAICS 621111) in 2025, per BLS’s QCEW (BLS), up 12.9% from 19,407 in 2019 (BLS) (our calculation). That was 9.7% of the 2025 U.S. total (our calculation). Florida’s private physician offices employed an average of 252,530 people in 2025 (BLS).

Together Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties averaged 4,556 private physician offices of all specialties in 2025, up 7.4% from 2019 and 20.8% of Florida’s 2025 total (our calculation from QCEW annual averages). Neither BLS nor Census publishes a county count of orthopedic practices.

How many U.S. adults have arthritis?

About 53.2 million U.S. adults had doctor-diagnosed arthritis in 2019–2021, according to CDC's analysis of the National Health Interview Survey (Fallon et al., MMWR 2023) (CDC MMWR). That is 21.2% of adults aged 18 and older, or 18.7% after age standardization (CDC MMWR). CDC's current consumer pages round the same survey to "about 54 million" adults (CDC) and say arthritis affects about 1 in 5 U.S. adults (CDC).

Osteoarthritis, the joint disease behind most knee and hip replacements, affects about 33 million U.S. adults, CDC says (CDC). Arthritis is far more common among adults who cannot work: 49.1% of adults who reported being unable to work or disabled also reported diagnosed arthritis in 2019–2021 (CDC MMWR, Table 1).

NHIS questions changed in 2019. CDC says its 2019–2021 estimates should not be compared with earlier NHIS estimates.

How much does arthritis limit daily activity and work?

CDC's most recent national count, from NHIS 2016–2018, found 25.7 million U.S. adults limited in their usual activities by arthritis, 43.9% of adults with arthritis (Theis et al., MMWR 2021) (CDC MMWR). CDC has not published a newer activity-limitation count on the post-2019 survey.

Among 20.1 million working-age adults who reported a work disability in NHIS 2011–2013, back or neck problems were the most common cause, named by 30.3%, and arthritis or rheumatism was third at 18.6% (Theis et al., Disability and Health Journal 2018) (PubMed).

What does arthritis cost, and how many adults will have it by 2040?

Arthritis cost the U.S. $303.5 billion in 2013 in medical care and lost earnings combined, according to CDC researchers using the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (Murphy et al., Arthritis Care & Research 2018) (PubMed). Medical spending attributed to arthritis was $139.8 billion (PubMed) and lost earnings among adults aged 18–64 were $163.7 billion (PubMed). No newer national estimate has been published.

A CDC projection (Hootman et al., Arthritis & Rheumatology 2016) expects 78.4 million U.S. adults, 25.9% of all adults, to have doctor-diagnosed arthritis by 2040 (PubMed). The same projection expects 34.6 million adults to be limited in daily activity by arthritis by 2040 (PubMed). Both figures apply 2010–2012 rates to Census Bureau population projections, so they assume rates stay the same.

How common is arthritis in Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties?

CDC's PLACES model estimates that 28.7% of adults in Palm Beach County had arthritis in 2023 (CDC PLACES). The estimates come from the 2023 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and are modelled for each county, not counted directly. Crude rates follow each county's age mix; age-adjusted rates remove it, which is why Martin County's crude rate is highest but its age-adjusted rate is close to the others.

Applying each county's crude rate to its adult population gives about 770,594 adults with arthritis across the three counties in 2023 (our calculation). That is an approximation from modelled rates, not a count of diagnosed patients.

How many knee and hip replacements do U.S. hospitals perform?

U.S. hospitals performed 715,200 knee arthroplasties during inpatient stays in 2018, the second most common inpatient operation after cesarean section, according to AHRQ's Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP Statistical Brief #281) (AHRQ HCUP). Hip arthroplasty ranked fourth at 599,500 (AHRQ HCUP). Together they came to 1.3 million (1,314,700) inpatient procedures (our calculation). These counts miss replacements done as outpatients or in ambulatory surgery centers.

Eight musculoskeletal procedures made up 21.0% of all inpatient operations in 2018 (AHRQ HCUP). Spine fusion was the costliest inpatient procedure that year, with stays totaling $14.1 billion in hospital costs; knee and hip arthroplasty ranked second and third (AHRQ HCUP).

Outside the inpatient ward, seven musculoskeletal categories made up 22% of major ambulatory surgeries in hospital-owned facilities in 2019 (HCUP Statistical Brief #287) (AHRQ HCUP). Procedures on muscles and tendons, such as arthroscopic rotator cuff repair, were the second most common category at 1.2 million (1,158,600) surgeries (AHRQ HCUP).

In 2022 HCUP counted 277 thousand inpatient stays with osteoarthritis as the main diagnosis, costing hospitals $5,618 million (HCUP Statistical Brief #316) (AHRQ HCUP). Osteoarthritis ranked 20th among the most expensive conditions treated in U.S. hospitals (AHRQ HCUP).

What does the American Joint Replacement Registry show?

The American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR), run by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (an association of orthopaedic surgeons), held 5.2 million hip and knee procedures performed from 2012 through 2025 in its 2026 Annual Report (AAOS). Participation is voluntary, so these are procedures submitted by participating sites, not every U.S. replacement. 1,598 institutions (AAOS) and 12,663 surgeons (AAOS) contributed, and the registry received 615,330 procedures performed in 2025 (AAOS). The 2024 report listed 1,447 institutions (AAOS), so the contributor count grew 10.4% in two report cycles (our calculation).

Ambulatory surgery centers submitted 35,495 procedures in 2025, more than three times their 2021 volume (AAOS). Mean hospital stay was 0.9 day after primary knee replacement and about one day after primary hip replacement (AAOS). 93.3% of knee patients and 92% of hip patients went home rather than to a facility (AAOS). Cementless fixation in primary knee replacement rose from 1.8% in 2012 to 23.9% in 2025 (AAOS).

Among patients with both pre-operative and one-year scores, 65.0% after knee replacement and 76.9% after hip replacement reached the CMS threshold for substantial clinical benefit (AAOS). Infection was recorded in 52.9% of linked knee revisions in 2025 (AAOS).

How many Americans live with a knee or hip replacement?

About 4.7 million people in the U.S. were living with a total knee replacement in 2010, and 2.5 million with a total hip replacement, according to Mayo Clinic and AHRQ researchers (Maradit Kremers et al., Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery 2015) (PubMed). They combined hospital discharge data from 1969 to 2010 with census and death counts. By age 80, 10.38% of Americans had a knee replacement and 5.26% a hip replacement (PubMed). No newer national prevalence estimate has been published.

How often do sports injuries and fractures send people to the emergency department?

U.S. emergency departments treated an estimated 16.5 million (16,485,396) injuries linked to consumer products and sports in 2025, according to our sum of the Consumer Product Safety Commission's NEISS case file (our calculation). An estimated 2.6 million (2,619,251) of them were fractures (our calculation), or 15.9% (our calculation). NEISS draws on a sample of hospital emergency departments and covers product- and sports-related injuries only.

All figures in the table are our calculations from the NEISS 2025 public file (sum of case weights).

A 21-year Mayo Clinic study of 1,841 patients in Olmsted County, Minnesota, found 68.6 isolated ACL tears per 100,000 person-years from 1990 to 2010 (Sanders et al., American Journal of Sports Medicine 2016) (PubMed). Tears peaked at 241.0 per 100,000 among males aged 19–25 and 227.6 among females aged 14–18 (PubMed). Among commercially insured people under 65, ACL reconstruction rose 22%, from 61.4 to 74.6 per 100,000 person-years between 2002 and 2014 (Herzog et al., Sports Health 2018; 283,810 reconstructions) (PubMed).

How many older adults break a hip?

Nearly 319,000 adults aged 65 and older are hospitalized for hip fractures each year, CDC says (CDC). In 2019, falls caused 88% of emergency visits and hospital stays for hip fractures among older adults and 83% of hip fracture deaths, by a study CDC cites (CDC). Falls among older adults lead to about 4.5 million emergency department visits a year, with 1.4 million hospitalizations (CDC).

How large is the musculoskeletal burden worldwide, and what does the U.S. spend on it?

About 1.71 billion people worldwide have a musculoskeletal condition, according to the World Health Organization, using Global Burden of Disease 2019 data (WHO). High-income countries have the most cases, 441 million (WHO). These conditions caused about 149 million years lived with disability, 17% of the world total, and low back pain is the leading cause of disability in 160 countries (WHO).

Two global counts of osteoarthritis differ by year and model edition:

The knee is the joint most often affected, with 365 million people in 2019, WHO says (WHO). GBD 2021 projects knee osteoarthritis cases to rise 74.9% from 2020 to 2050, mainly from population growth and ageing (PubMed).

In U.S. health spending, low back and neck pain cost more than any of 154 conditions in 2016, an estimated $134.5 billion, with other musculoskeletal disorders second at $129.8 billion (Dieleman et al., JAMA 2020) (PubMed). Osteoarthritis accounted for $80.0 billion (PubMed).

Do orthopedic implant and robot makers tell investors about video?

Only 4 of the 9 newest annual reports we read from listed orthopedic device makers use the word "video" at all: Zimmer Biomet, Globus Medical, Orthofix and Smith+Nephew, all for fiscal 2025 (our calculation from the filings on SEC EDGAR). Just two of them use it for surgeon education or marketing material. None of the nine mentions telehealth, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram or Facebook. Annual reports describe channels in broad terms, so a missing word does not mean a company makes no videos.

Globus Medical says in its fiscal 2025 10-K that it trains surgeons in person and through virtual content, including virtual conferences and video and social channels (Globus Medical 10-K). Orthofix says in its fiscal 2025 10-K that it produces marketing and training materials, including surgical procedure guides, in printed, video and multimedia formats for customers, sales staff and distributors (Orthofix 10-K). Smith+Nephew's fiscal 2025 annual report (Form 20-F) describes teaching at seven Academy centres plus an AI-enabled online academy, eLearning, live surgery transmission, virtual reality and podcasts (Smith+Nephew 20-F). Its other "video" is a product: TESSA Spatial Surgery, which it calls the first arthroscopic video-based navigation system, still pending FDA De Novo review in its fiscal 2025 20-F (Smith+Nephew 20-F).

Patient-facing marketing shows up in a few reports. In the same set of fiscal 2025 reports, 1 (SI-BONE's) describes posting social media content for patients, and two describe reaching patients directly (our calculation). SI-BONE says in its fiscal 2025 10-K that it runs targeted marketing and direct outreach and posts social media content to educate patients who may be candidates for sacroiliac joint fusion (SI-BONE 10-K). Zimmer Biomet's fiscal 2025 10-K says its selling, general and administrative costs rose partly on investments in direct-to-patient marketing and medical education, without giving a dollar figure (Zimmer Biomet 10-K). Enovis' fiscal 2025 10-K lists its bracing and recovery products as sold through distributors, direct salespeople and direct to patients; that segment had net sales of $1,137.0 million (Enovis 10-K). Stryker's fiscal 2024 10-K described its "Scan. Plan. Mako Can." direct to patient campaign for Mako robotic surgery in the U.S. (Stryker 10-K for fiscal 2024); its fiscal 2025 10-K does not mention it. Treace Medical Concepts, a bunion-surgery company that sells to foot and ankle orthopaedic surgeons and podiatrists, says in its fiscal 2025 10-K that it educates patients directly through social media and digital and traditional marketing (Treace 10-K for fiscal 2025).

How many robotic joint replacement procedures and systems do the makers report?

Stryker says more than two million robotic procedures had been performed worldwide with its Mako system, over one million of them total knees, in its fiscal 2025 10-K; Mako is sold in more than 45 countries (Stryker 10-K for fiscal 2025). Its fiscal 2024 10-K said 1.5 million (Stryker 10-K for fiscal 2024) and its fiscal 2023 10-K marked 1 million (Stryker 10-K for fiscal 2023). The cumulative count has at least doubled, by a factor of 2, in two years (our calculation from Stryker's rounded milestones). Stryker's 10-Ks give no count of installed robots.

Smith+Nephew had more than 1,100 CORI handheld robots installed worldwide at the end of 2025, according to its fiscal 2025 20-F (Smith+Nephew 20-F for fiscal 2025), up from more than 1,000 at the end of 2024 (Smith+Nephew 20-F for fiscal 2024). In 2025, 35% of the CORI systems it placed in the U.S. went to ambulatory surgery centers (Smith+Nephew 20-F for fiscal 2025).

Johnson & Johnson's fiscal 2025 10-K credits knee growth to its ATTUNE knee line and pull-through from the VELYS robotic-assisted solution, but gives no robot or procedure count (J&J 10-K). Globus Medical's fiscal 2025 10-K describes ExcelsiusGPS as a robotic guidance and navigation system for spine screw and spacer placement (Globus Medical 10-K). Globus' Enabling Technologies sales, which include ExcelsiusGPS, were $141.0 million ($141,008 thousand) in fiscal 2025, down from $154.0 million (Globus Medical 10-K), or 4.8% of its net sales (our calculation). Zimmer Biomet's fiscal 2025 10-K names its ROSA robot for knee, hip and shoulder procedures without giving counts.

How much do the largest makers sell in knee and hip implants?

Zimmer Biomet, Stryker, Johnson & Johnson and Smith+Nephew together reported $8.6 billion ($8,576.3 million) in knee implant sales and $6.3 billion ($6,273.5 million) in hip implant sales for fiscal 2025 (our calculation from their annual reports). Each company draws its categories differently, and smaller or private makers are not included, so these are not market totals.

By company, for fiscal 2025: Zimmer Biomet's knees were $3,322.3 million (Zimmer Biomet 10-K) and hips $2,093.5 million (Zimmer Biomet 10-K). Stryker's knees were $2,656 million (Stryker 10-K) and hips $1,865 million (Stryker 10-K). Johnson & Johnson's knees were $1,587 million (J&J 10-K) and hips $1,674 million (J&J 10-K). Smith+Nephew's knees were $1,011 million (Smith+Nephew 20-F) and hips $641 million (Smith+Nephew 20-F).

Knees and hips are 65.8% of all Zimmer Biomet's fiscal 2025 net sales, 67.8% of Smith+Nephew's Orthopaedics revenue, 47.7% of Stryker's Orthopaedics net sales and 35.2% of Johnson & Johnson's Orthopaedics franchise sales (our calculations). The rest is mostly trauma, extremities, sports medicine and spine. Enovis' Reconstructive segment earns about 48% of its revenue in the U.S., according to its fiscal 2025 10-K (Enovis 10-K). Orthofix's Global Limb Reconstruction sales were $134.7 million ($134,657 thousand) in fiscal 2025, up 8.4% (Orthofix 10-K).

How many surgeons do orthopedic device makers train, and how?

Smith+Nephew ran 132,597 healthcare professional training sessions in 2025, and more than 3,850 S+N Academy programmes, according to its fiscal 2025 20-F (Smith+Nephew 20-F for fiscal 2025). That was up from 106,734 in 2024 (Smith+Nephew 20-F for fiscal 2024) and 97,405 in 2023 (Smith+Nephew 20-F for fiscal 2023): growth of 24.2% in 2025 and 36.1% over two years (our calculation). The count covers all three of its business units and all healthcare professionals, and a session is not a unique person.

The U.S. makers describe training without numbers. OrthoPediatrics says in its fiscal 2025 10-K that it is cumulatively the largest financial contributor to the five primary pediatric orthopedic surgical societies and sponsors CME courses for fellows and young surgeons (OrthoPediatrics 10-K). Zimmer Biomet's fiscal 2025 10-K says it invests heavily in training sales associates to inform and support surgeons (Zimmer Biomet 10-K). Enovis' fiscal 2025 10-K says its implants are backed by proprietary surgical techniques, surgeon education and digital planning tools (Enovis 10-K), and that it relies on designing and consulting arrangements with orthopedic surgeons who test new implants, speak at symposia and help train other professionals (Enovis 10-K). None of these 10-Ks gives a count of consulting surgeons or a total paid to them.

How many orthopedic surgeons do the companies say there are?

OrthoPediatrics puts the number of practicing U.S. orthopedic surgeons focused on adults at about 33,400 in 2025, against more than 1,500 members of the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America, in its fiscal 2025 10-K (OrthoPediatrics 10-K). That is about 22 adult-focused surgeons per POSNA member (our calculation). The 10-K does not name a source for either figure; government and association counts appear elsewhere on this page.

Two foot and ankle device makers size the same subspecialty differently. Paragon 28's fiscal 2024 10-K, its last before Zimmer Biomet bought it, estimated about 2,400 U.S. orthopedic surgeons who specialize in foot and ankle, plus about 9,000 surgical podiatrists (Paragon 28 10-K for fiscal 2024). Treace Medical Concepts' fiscal 2025 10-K estimates about 2,600 orthopaedic surgeons with foot and ankle specializations and about 8,000 surgical podiatrists (Treace 10-K for fiscal 2025); its fiscal 2024 10-K gave the same surgeon figure. The two companies' estimates differ by 200 (our calculation); neither names its source.

SI-BONE reports how many physicians use its sacroiliac joint implants. Its fiscal 2024 10-K said more than 115,000 procedures had been done (SI-BONE 10-K for fiscal 2024) by over 4,300 physicians in the U.S. and 38 other countries since 2009 (SI-BONE 10-K for fiscal 2024). Its fiscal 2025 10-K raises the procedure count to more than 140,000 without repeating the physician count (SI-BONE 10-K for fiscal 2025).

How much do orthopedic device makers spend on selling and advertising?

SI-BONE spent $124.2 million ($124,224 thousand) on sales and marketing in fiscal 2025, according to its 10-K (SI-BONE 10-K), equal to 61.8% of its revenue (our calculation). At the end of fiscal 2025 its U.S. sales force was 89 territory sales managers and 83 clinical support specialists on staff plus 320 third-party sales agents, up from 252 agents a year earlier (SI-BONE 10-K).

OrthoPediatrics' advertising costs, mostly print advertising and trade shows, were $3.4 million ($3,427 thousand) in fiscal 2025, according to its 10-K (OrthoPediatrics 10-K). That is 1.5% of revenue and 43.1% more than in fiscal 2024 (our calculations). Its U.S. sales run mostly through over 30 independent agencies employing 232 sales representatives (OrthoPediatrics 10-K for fiscal 2025). Smith+Nephew's advertising costs across all its business units were $91 million in fiscal 2025 (Smith+Nephew 20-F). Stryker, Zimmer Biomet, Globus Medical and Enovis give no advertising figure in their fiscal 2025 10-Ks.

Sales representatives are part of the surgery itself. Globus Medical's fiscal 2025 10-K says its implant representatives are in the operating room during most U.S. surgeries, and that it sells hip and knee products mainly through independent agents (Globus Medical 10-K). Zimmer Biomet's fiscal 2025 10-K describes a multi-year initiative to convert much of its U.S. sales force from independent agents to employees (Zimmer Biomet 10-K).

What deals reshaped the listed orthopedic makers?

Zimmer Biomet paid $1,241.5 million in initial cash for Paragon 28, a foot and ankle implant company, when the deal closed on April 21, 2025, according to its fiscal 2025 10-K (Zimmer Biomet 10-K). Paragon 28 added 2.5 percentage points to Zimmer Biomet's fiscal 2025 net sales growth (Zimmer Biomet 10-K).

In October 2025 Johnson & Johnson announced that it intends to separate its Orthopaedics business, with a target of completion within 18 to 24 months, according to its fiscal 2025 10-K (J&J 10-K). The business is to be named DePuy Synthes, and J&J reclassified $1.7 billion of DePuy Synthes trademarks as indefinite-lived (J&J 10-K for fiscal 2025). Globus Medical's fiscal 2025 10-K recalls that in the NuVasive merger of September 1, 2023, each NuVasive share became 0.75 Globus shares (Globus Medical 10-K).

How often do annual reports mention orthopedic surgeons, video and telehealth?

31 Form 10-K annual reports filed in 2025 contained "orthopedic surgeon(s)" or "orthopaedic surgeon(s)", against 20 in 2001 and a peak of 62 in 2009, by our count with SEC EDGAR full-text search (our calculation). From 2001 to 2025, 1,033 such filings came from 207 registrants (our calculation). The yearly counts, filer names and query URLs are in our EDGAR counts file.

No single filer's boilerplate drives the base count. Five registrants account for 115 of the 1,033 filings, led by U.S. Physical Therapy, which appears in all 25 years (our calculation). A filing-by-filing read of the 2025 set found 17 of 31 from companies that sell to, market to or size their market by orthopedic surgeons; 9 mention one only in a director biography or company history (Stryker's only use is its founder, Dr. Homer Stryker), 3 only in a name such as the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, and 2 in passing (our calculation; see the contexts file).

Video rarely means surgeon video in these filings. From 2001 to 2025, 111 10-Ks paired an orthopedic-surgeon phrase with "video"; in 53 the word meant arthroscopy, endoscopy or other medical video equipment, in 35 marketing, promotion or training video, and in 11 employee or compliance messages (our calculation). 5 were filed in 2025, and 2 of them (Globus Medical and Tenon Medical) describe training surgeons with video (our calculation).

Filings pairing an orthopedic-surgeon phrase with "telehealth" or "telemedicine" peaked at 12 in 2021 and fell to 6 in 2025; none of the 2025 filings describes orthopedic surgeons seeing patients by video visit (our calculation). Here the counts are inflated by repeated text: Centene's health plan description accounts for 16 of the 66 filings pairing a surgeon phrase with "telehealth", and HCA Healthcare's subsidiary list, which names both an orthopaedic surgeons practice and a telehealth physician entity, for 7 more (our calculation).

What is Medicare’s TEAM bundled payment model for joint replacement and spine surgery?

Since January 1, 2026, CMS’s Transforming Episode Accountability Model (TEAM) has made selected hospitals answer for the whole Medicare cost of a surgery and its recovery; the model is mandatory and runs through 2030 (CMS). It covers five kinds of surgery, three of them orthopedic or spine: lower extremity joint replacement, surgical hip and femur fracture treatment and spinal fusion, plus coronary artery bypass graft and major bowel procedures (CMS). Each episode starts with the hospital stay or outpatient procedure and ends 30 days after the patient leaves the hospital (CMS). Hospitals keep billing Medicare as usual, and CMS then compares their actual episode spending with a target price.

In its FY 2025 inpatient payment final rule (August 2024), CMS randomly picked 188 of the 803 eligible Core-Based Statistical Areas, 23.4 percent of them, and hospitals paid under the inpatient system in those areas must take part (Federal Register). CMS’s model page counted 716 participating hospitals in November 2026 (CMS). Target prices for joint replacement, hip fracture and spinal fusion episodes carry a 2 percent discount, against 1.5 percent for bypass and bowel surgery (Federal Register). CMS projected that TEAM would save Medicare about $481 million over 2026 through 2030 (Federal Register); that is a projection in the rule, not a measured result.

TEAM also waives Medicare’s usual telehealth location rules for its patients. A TEAM hospital can bill telehealth evaluation and monitoring visits to a patient at home, wherever the patient lives, when the visits take place within 30 days of the surgery or hospital stay (CMS). This section summarizes published rules and payment models; it is not legal or billing advice.

How did CJR and BPCI Advanced, Medicare’s earlier joint replacement bundles, work?

CMS’s Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) Model, a bundled payment for Medicare hip, knee and ankle replacements, ran from April 1, 2016 to December 31, 2024, eight performance years (CMS). It began in 67 metropolitan statistical areas (CMS), and about 324 hospitals took part in its final three years, October 2021 to December 2024 (CMS). A CJR episode lasted 90 days after discharge or after the outpatient procedure (CMS), three times as long as a TEAM episode.

CMS’s final CJR evaluation, written by an independent contractor, estimates the model saved Medicare $180 million from October 2021 to December 2024 while quality of care held steady, mostly through fewer discharges to inpatient rehabilitation facilities (CMS). In those years 66% of the joint replacements at CJR hospitals were done as outpatient procedures, slightly below the national share (CMS). The voluntary BPCI Advanced model, which bundled 90-day episodes for physician groups and hospitals, ended on December 31, 2025, the day before TEAM began (CMS).

When did Medicare let knee and hip replacements move to outpatient departments and surgery centers?

Medicare first paid for total knee replacement as a hospital outpatient procedure in CY 2018, after CMS took it off the inpatient-only list in its final rule of November 13, 2017 (Federal Register, 82 FR 52356). Total hip replacement came off the list in CY 2020, together with six spinal procedure codes (Federal Register, 84 FR 61142). The same rule added knee replacement (CPT 27447) to the list of procedures Medicare pays ambulatory surgical centers for, from CY 2020 on (Federal Register). CMS noted then that Medicare knee replacements in 2018 were still done as inpatient procedures 82 percent of the time (Federal Register). Hip replacement (CPT 27130) joined the surgery center list in CY 2021 (Federal Register, 85 FR 85866).

CMS has twice set out to end the inpatient-only list. Its CY 2021 rule planned a three-year phase-out that began with 266 musculoskeletal-related services (Federal Register). CMS halted the phase-out in its CY 2022 rule and returned most of the services removed in 2021 to the list (Federal Register). In its CY 2026 rule CMS again set a three-year phase-out, starting with 285 mostly musculoskeletal procedures; its CY 2027 rule, published November 6, 2026, continues it with other clinical families (Federal Register).

What is Medicare’s physician payment rate per relative value unit in 2026 and 2027?

Medicare pays orthopedic surgeons, like other physicians, by multiplying each service’s relative value units by a conversion factor. For physicians who are not qualifying APM participants, CMS’s CY 2027 Physician Fee Schedule final rule (November 2026) sets it at $32.63 (CMS), down 2.31% from $33.40 in 2026, because a one-year 2.50% increase for 2026 has ended (CMS). From 2027, when an office visit and a 0-day global procedure are billed on the same day by the same physician, the cheaper of the two is paid at 80% and the other at 100% (CMS). CMS had proposed 50% and had proposed covering 10-day and 90-day global surgeries too; it finalized neither (CMS).

What do Medicare and Florida law allow for orthopedic telehealth video visits?

CMS’s Telehealth FAQ (updated October 2026) says Medicare patients can receive telehealth anywhere in the United States, at home included, through December 31, 2027 (CMS). After that date, unless Congress extends it, most Medicare patients outside behavioral health will need to be in a medical facility in a rural area for a visit to count as telehealth (CMS). TEAM’s own waiver for at-home visits within 30 days of surgery is separate (CMS).

Florida’s telehealth statute (Florida Statutes 456.47, 2026) covers “synchronous or asynchronous” technology (Florida Statutes 456.47), so both live video visits and store-and-forward review count, while e-mail and fax do not. A Florida provider whose remote evaluation is enough to diagnose and treat does not have to do a physical examination first (Florida Statutes 456.47), and records of telehealth visits, including video, are confidential medical records (Florida Statutes 456.47).

When does a patient testimonial or surgery video need the patient’s HIPAA authorization?

HIPAA defines marketing as a communication about a product or service that encourages people to “purchase or use the product or service” (eCFR, 45 CFR 164.501). To use protected health information for marketing, a covered entity such as an orthopedic practice “must obtain an authorization” from the patient, with exceptions only for face-to-face communications and promotional gifts of nominal value (eCFR, 45 CFR 164.508). HIPAA’s de-identification rule lists “Full face photographic images” and comparable images among the identifiers of a patient (eCFR, 45 CFR 164.514), so a recovery story or surgery video that shows a patient’s face is identifiable health information.

HHS’s Office for Civil Rights has enforced these rules against practice marketing and online replies. Complete P.T., Pool & Land Physical Therapy, a Los Angeles-area practice, agreed in 2016 to pay $25,000 after posting patient testimonials with full names and full-face photos on its website without valid authorizations (HHS OCR). Manasa Health Center, a New Jersey psychiatric practice, agreed in 2023 to pay $30,000 after disclosing four patients’ health information in replies to their negative Google reviews (HHS OCR). Neither was an orthopedic practice; the physical therapy video statistics page covers the Complete P.T. case in more detail. From April 2003 through October 31, 2024, OCR settled or imposed civil money penalties in 152 HIPAA cases, for a total of $144,878,972.00 across every kind of covered entity (HHS OCR).

What do FTC rules say about surgeon endorsements, patient testimonials and fake reviews?

The FTC’s Endorsement Guides, in the text published on July 26, 2023 (eCFR, 16 CFR Part 255), read a patient testimonial as a claim that the result is typical. If the advertiser cannot back that up, the ad should disclose the generally expected performance (eCFR, 16 CFR 255.2). When an endorsement uses both pictures and sound, as a video does, the disclosure belongs in both the visual and audible portions (eCFR, 16 CFR 255.0). The Guides’ own physician example says viewers expect a doctor in an ad to be paid for appearing, but not to receive a “percentage of gross product sales” or own part of the company, so a tie like that should be disclosed (eCFR, 16 CFR 255.5).

The FTC’s rule on consumer reviews and testimonials (16 CFR Part 465) took effect on October 21, 2024 (Federal Register). It bars a business from writing, creating or selling a “consumer testimonial” that misrepresents, for example, that the testimonialist exists or used the service (eCFR, 16 CFR 465.2). When the FTC issued the rule it put the maximum civil penalty at $51,744 per violation and noted that courts may impose much less (Federal Register). After the January 2025 inflation adjustment, the maximum for knowingly violating an FTC rule is $53,088 per violation (eCFR, 16 CFR 1.98).

What must a Florida orthopedic surgeon’s ad or video include, and what is banned?

Florida’s physician statute lists “False, deceptive, or misleading advertising” as grounds for discipline (Florida Statutes 458.331), and the Board of Medicine may fine up to $10,000 for each count (Florida Statutes 456.072). Any ad naming a practitioner must identify the type of license that person holds (Florida Statutes 456.072), which applies when practice videos feature physician assistants or nurse practitioners. A Florida physician may advertise as board-certified only with recognition from a board of the American Board of Medical Specialties or another agency the Board of Medicine has approved (Florida Statutes 458.3312).

The Board of Medicine’s advertising rule treats an ad as false, deceptive or misleading if it creates false or “unjustified expectations of beneficial assistance” (Florida Administrative Code 64B8-11.001). A physician who advertises on electronic media must keep an exact copy of each audio or video ad for at least six months after it airs (Florida Administrative Code 64B8-11.001).

What do the popular orthopedic numbers really say?

Orthopedic practice websites, hospital news services, device trade press and marketing vendors repeat four numbers more than most: a 673% rise in knee replacements, one in four adults with arthritis, a video that lifts conversions by 80%, and one in two Americans with a musculoskeletal condition. We traced each to the study, survey or vendor that produced it and read what it measured. Pages that repeat a number are linked only as dated evidence of how it spread, never as a source for the number itself.

“Knee replacements will grow 673% by 2030”

The figure is a 2006 projection that carried the growth of 1990-2003 forward to 2030, and every later projection came in far lower. It first appeared at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) annual meeting in Chicago in March 2006, where Steven Kurtz of Exponent, an engineering and scientific consulting firm, presented a study saying the number of artificial knees needed would jump 673 percent by 2030 (Chicago Tribune, via The Vindicator). The peer-reviewed version followed in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS) in April 2007: demand for primary total knee arthroplasty would grow by 673% (JBJS) to 3.48 million procedures a year (JBJS), and primary total hip arthroplasty by 174% (JBJS) to 572,000 (JBJS). The authors built it from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample, a federal sample of U.S. hospital discharges, for 1990 to 2003, combined with Census Bureau population projections, using Poisson regression on historical procedure rates (JBJS). In an August 2007 interview, Kurtz and co-author Kevin Ong gave the starting point the abstract leaves out: about 450,000 primary knee replacements in 2005 (Orthopaedics Today, archived). The 673% is growth from that 2005 base. It assumes the rate increases of the 1990s and early 2000s keep compounding.

They did not. Kurtz’s own 2014 update, using hospital data for 1993 to 2010 and a model tied to national health spending, counted a 6.1% rise in primary knee replacements from 2009 to 2010 and said its new knee estimates were lower than the earlier model’s (JBJS). Sloan and colleagues, in JBJS in September 2018, used hospital data for 2000 to 2014 and projected 1.26 million primary knee replacements in 2030, an 85% rise (JBJS). Their models based on 2008-2014 growth alone gave about 935,000 (JBJS), and the authors wrote that growth had not followed the earlier exponential projections. Singh and colleagues (Journal of Rheumatology, 2019), using the same 2000-2014 hospital sample with polynomial regression, predicted about 1.9 million (1,921 thousand) primary knee replacements in 2030 (Journal of Rheumatology) and about 3.4 million (3,416 thousand) in 2040 (Journal of Rheumatology), close to Kurtz’s 2030 figure but ten years later. A 2016 meeting abstract from OrthoCarolina researchers showed how much the answer depends on the model: on hospital data for 2003 to 2012, their 2030 projections ran up to a 768% increase under an exponential model (ISPOR abstract, Odum et al.).

Actual counts sit far below the 2030 projection. The OrthoCarolina abstract found a national weighted count of 545,156 total knee replacements in the 2010 hospital sample, slightly above what the models projected for that year (ISPOR abstract, Odum et al.). For Medicare alone, Shichman and colleagues (JBJS Open Access, 2023) counted 480,958 primary knee replacements billed under Medicare Part B in 2019 (JBJS Open Access), and projected 1.2 million (1,222,988) among Medicare patients in 2040 (JBJS Open Access). Shichman’s 2019 figure counts Part B services billed under the knee replacement code, a unit that also includes assistants’ claims; CMS’s own file counts 293,186 Medicare fee-for-service patients who had the operation that year (see our Medicare section). Our Medicare section and burden section give the most recent CMS and hospital counts.

The original figure is still printed. Healthcare Innovation wrote in February 2018, in a story on a knee-surgery robot acquisition by Johnson & Johnson, that about 780,000 U.S. knee replacements a year would rise to 3.48 million by 2030 (Healthcare Innovation). In December 2018, three months after Sloan’s revision, the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons posted AAOS fast facts saying knee replacements would grow 673% to 3.5 million a year by 2030 (AAHKS). Mayo Clinic News Network repeated 673% in January 2024, “according to a 2007 study” (Mayo Clinic News Network, archived), and a Rockford, Illinois TV station repeated 673% in an April 2024 story about a local orthopedic practice (WIFR).

Use instead: “A 2018 JBJS projection from 2000-2014 hospital data put U.S. primary knee replacements at 1.26 million a year by 2030 (Sloan et al.).” Set it beside a recent actual count, such as the 292,550 Medicare fee-for-service patients who had a total knee replacement in 2024, and call the 673% a 2007 projection from 1990-2003 trends.

“1 in 4 adults has arthritis” and “arthritis is the leading cause of disability”

CDC’s surveys have put the share of adults with diagnosed arthritis at about one in five, and “1 in 4” began as a rounding in a CDC press release. In January 2010 the Arthritis Foundation counted 46 million Americans with arthritis or chronic joint symptoms in 2006, “nearly 1 in 5 adults”, a definition that included joint symptoms (Arthritis Foundation, archived). CDC’s counts come from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), which asks adults whether a doctor or other health professional ever told them they have arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, gout, lupus or fibromyalgia. For 2010-2012, CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) estimated 52.5 million adults, 22.7% (CDC MMWR, archived), and CDC’s statistics page in November 2015 called that “One in five (22.7%)” (CDC, archived).

The 2013-2015 estimate was 54.4 million adults, an unchanged share that the MMWR described as “more than one in five” (CDC MMWR, archived). CDC’s press release for the same report, on March 7, 2017, said more than 54 million adults, “or about 1 in 4”, have arthritis (CDC) and gave the share as 23 percent (CDC). By January 2018 the Arthritis Foundation wrote that more than 50 million adults have doctor-diagnosed arthritis, “That’s 1 in 4 people over age 18” (Arthritis Foundation, archived).

The count then rose and fell with a change of survey. The 2016-2018 estimate was 58.5 million adults, 23.7% (CDC MMWR, archived). For a while CDC’s own statistics page printed the new count against the old years and share: “From 2013–2015, an estimated 58.5 million US adults (22.7%)” (CDC, archived January 2022). NHIS was redesigned in 2019, and the first estimate on the new questionnaire, for 2019-2021, was 53.2 million adults, 21.2% (CDC MMWR, archived). CDC warned that estimates from before 2019 should not be statistically compared with later ones (CDC MMWR, archived), so the drop is a change of method, not fewer cases. The forward-looking figures are CDC projections that apply current rates to Census population forecasts: from 47.8 million adults in 2005 to nearly 67 million by 2030 (Arthritis & Rheumatism, Hootman and Helmick, 2006), later updated to 78.4 million by 2040 (Arthritis & Rheumatology, Hootman et al., 2016).

“Leading cause of disability” comes from a ranking of causes among people who already report a disability. CDC’s MMWR analysis of the Census Bureau’s 2005 Survey of Income and Program Participation found arthritis or rheumatism was the most common cause named by adults with a disability, affecting about 8.6 million people (CDC MMWR, archived). The Arthritis Foundation turned that into “the nation’s No. 1 cause of disability” (Arthritis Foundation, archived).

The Foundation still uses the larger numbers. Its press release of October 5, 2026 says one in four U.S. adults has diagnosed arthritis (Arthritis Foundation) and that nearly 60 million adults and children are diagnosed (Arthritis Foundation), counting children with adults and naming no survey; its own pages say “nearly”, and we found no “more than” form there. Orthopaedic Associates of Manhasset told patients in June 2022 that arthritis is the number one cause of disability, impacting over 50 million Americans (Orthopaedic Associates of Manhasset). A 2026 Washington State House resolution says arthritis affects 54 million American adults, 24.1 percent of adults (Washington State Legislature), a share that matches neither the 2013-2015 survey nor the 2019-2021 one.

Use instead: “In the 2019-2021 National Health Interview Survey, 21.2% of U.S. adults, about one in five, reported diagnosed arthritis (CDC).” Use CDC’s current figure from our burden section, name the survey years, and do not compare it with pre-2019 counts. For disability, say arthritis is the most common cause reported by adults with a disability (CDC, 2005 data).

“Video on a landing page lifts conversions by 80%”

The figure is a best case from one video vendor, EyeView, in 2009-2010, about financial and tutoring websites, not healthcare. EyeView’s blog first reported that eToro visitors who watched its video were 20% more likely to download the product (December 2008) (EyeView, archived). In February 2009 it said UMOO viewers were 80% more likely to become depositing users, comparing viewers with non-viewers for one client (EyeView, archived), and in November 2009 it quoted a TutorVista manager on a first test that lifted conversion by over 80 percent (EyeView, archived). Its 2010 white paper said only that “in some cases” the boost was over 80% (EyeView white paper, archived), and the one test it described, the eToro split test, was now almost 32 percent (EyeView white paper, archived).

The scope fell away in repeats. By August 2010 Unbounce, a landing-page software seller, wrote that video on landing pages can increase conversion by 80% (Unbounce, archived), and WordStream, a pay-per-click software seller, repeated 80% in March 2016, crediting “EyeWideDigital” (WordStream). Healthcare marketing carried it on: Nucleus Medical Media, which makes medical animation and patient-education video, listed 80% in 2018, credited to Eyeview Digital (Nucleus Medical Media), and Practice Builders, which markets medical and dental practices, wrote 80 percent in a 2018 white paper, crediting a different video producer (Practice Builders). We searched orthopedic marketing pages for the figure and found no orthopedic practice test behind it.

The larger later evidence points the other way. Unbounce’s own 2021 analysis of about 35,000 customer landing pages in each of three periods (Unbounce) concluded that video appears to have a minimal or negative impact on landing-page performance regardless of the conversion goal (Unbounce). Use instead: do not cite a conversion lift for orthopedic video; say Unbounce’s 2021 study of 35,000 pages found video had a minimal or negative effect, and judge a practice’s video by its own appointment requests.

“1 in 2 Americans has a musculoskeletal condition”

The figure is a count of adults who told a national health survey they have a bone, joint, back or muscle condition, and it doubled from an earlier form because the definition changed. The report behind it is The Burden of Musculoskeletal Diseases in the United States (BMUS), published by the United States Bone and Joint Initiative (USBJI); AAOS issued its 2016 press release. Its first edition’s website, captured in January 2011, said more than 1 in 4 Americans has a musculoskeletal condition requiring medical attention (BMUS, archived). A March 1, 2016 press release issued through AAOS for the third edition said an estimated 126.6 million Americans, one in two adults, are affected by a musculoskeletal condition, comparable to the share living with a chronic lung or heart condition (AAOS for USBJI). The report’s own site gave the scope: 54 of every 100 persons aged 18 and over, from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey (BMUS, archived). The count includes self-reported back and neck pain, injuries and arthritis, not only conditions treated by a doctor. The fourth edition’s prevalence chapter put the 2015 count at 124.1 million adults, still one in two (BMUS, archived). The report’s old boneandjointburden.org address now redirects to an unrelated site, so links to it no longer reach the report. The fourth edition, including that prevalence chapter, is still online at bmus-ors.org, now hosted by the Orthopaedic Research Society (BMUS on bmus-ors.org).

Within four weeks a repeat had stretched the comparison. Texas Orthopedics, an Austin practice, wrote on March 28, 2016 that 126.6 million Americans have a musculoskeletal condition, “more than double” the number living with chronic heart and lung conditions (Texas Orthopedics); the release had said comparable. The BMUS domain no longer hosts the report, so links to it now lead to unrelated pages; read it through archived copies.

Use instead: “In the 2015 National Health Interview Survey, 124.1 million U.S. adults, about one in two, reported a musculoskeletal condition, including back pain and injuries (BMUS, fourth edition).” Do not call it a count of diagnosed or treated cases.

Every popular claim our research pages trace, 853 in all, is on one page: popular video statistics, fact-checked.

How we built this page

We started from the questions people search for about orthopedic video statistics and looked for the organization that actually produced each answer. Every figure on this page sits in an evidence ledger with its source, the exact table or paragraph it came from, the measurement period, the population measured, and the date we checked it. This edition holds 671 figures from 88 publishers.

On November 8, 2026, each sourced figure on this page was re-fetched with the fetch cache cleared and matched against the recorded wording: CMS’s Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners files through the data.cms.gov data API, and CMS model, fee schedule and telehealth pages; BLS occupation wage estimates and the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (through the BLS data API and data files) and Employment Projections and Occupational Outlook Handbook pages (through Internet Archive copies, because bls.gov refuses automated requests); Census County Business Patterns, Nonemployer Statistics, the 2022 Economic Census and the Annual Integrated Economic Survey (through the Census data API); CDC pages and MMWR (Internet Archive copies), CDC PLACES, AHRQ’s HCUP statistical briefs, the American Joint Replacement Registry’s releases and WHO fact sheets; ACGME, ABOS, AAOS and AAMC pages and Florida’s physician workforce report; eCFR, the Federal Register, the 2026 Florida Statutes and the Board of Medicine’s advertising rule; SEC filings on EDGAR; YouTube and Google Ads help pages; journal abstracts (PubMed abstracts re-read through NCBI’s E-utilities, because the pages answer scripts with a bot check); and the pages behind each popular claim. Our Medicare counts come from CMS’s own files, our YouTube figures from the YouTube Data API, our injury estimates from CPSC’s NEISS case file and our filing counts from EDGAR full-text search. We left out JAMA Network and Arthroplasty Today article pages and congress.gov (robots rules that bar AI agents), www.ahrq.gov (same), ftc.gov pages (they answer scripts with an error page, so FTC rules are cited from eCFR and the Federal Register), the full American Joint Replacement Registry reports (behind a download form), CPSC’s web pages (they refuse scripts) and the AAOS census reports after 2018 (members only).

We only cite the producer: government agencies, regulators, company filings and official posts, and the survey owner's own report. We do not cite statistics roundups, Statista-style aggregators, or salary sites without a public method. We did not bypass paywalls or sign-up forms; where a full report was gated, we used only the figures its publisher states publicly.

Figures marked "our calculation" are arithmetic on the cited numbers, and anyone can reproduce them:

This edition contains no Mark Studios customer data.

Limitations

• Orthopedic surgeon counts differ by source. BLS counts 14,100 wage-and-salary orthopedic surgeon jobs, which leaves out owners of unincorporated practices; the AAMC counted 18,464 active orthopedic surgeons in 2021; the AAOS sent its 2018 census to 30,141 orthopaedists; Florida’s survey counts physicians in orthopedic medicine who answer it. CMS counts only those who billed Medicare. We print them side by side rather than pick one.
• Our Medicare figures cover fee-for-service Part B only. They leave out Medicare Advantage, so they miss a growing share of Medicare patients, and CMS hides service lines with fewer than 11 patients, so procedure counts are floors. County totals use each surgeon’s listed ZIP code.
• Physician-office figures are not orthopedic figures. BLS and Census count orthopedic practices inside offices of physicians (NAICS 621111), shared with every other specialty.
• Our YouTube read follows YouTube’s ranking. The 558 videos are what YouTube’s search returned for ‘orthopedic surgeon’, ‘knee replacement’ and ‘ACL surgery’ (the top 200 results of each, sorted by views, with no country filter) on November 8, 2026. It is not a census of orthopedic video, view counts are lifetime snapshots, and we sorted 285 channels by hand from their public text without checking credentials. One U.S. channel we count as an orthopedic surgeon’s, because its own text says so, posts mostly about diet. We do not name patients.
• Study results come from specific settings. Each content study sampled the top results for one topic on one date and defined “physician” its own way; most education trials were small and run in one or two clinics; several telehealth figures come from single hospitals in 2020.
• Association and company figures are their own. The AAOS and its registry, the AAHKS and the Arthritis Foundation represent or campaign for the field, and implant makers’ 10-K estimates come from their own market research. Each is labelled.

How to cite this page

For a single figure, cite the original publisher named next to it, and link here if the verification trail is useful to your readers. Each figure has its own anchor, so you can link straight to it, for example https://www.markstudios.com/research/orthopedic-surgeon-video-statistics#DRV-209. To cite the page as a whole:

Mark Studios. "Orthopedic Video Statistics." Last verified Nov 8, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/orthopedic-surgeon-video-statistics

@misc{markstudios_orthopedic_surgeon_video_statistics_2026,
  author = {{Mark Studios}},
  title = {{Orthopedic Video Statistics}},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  url = {https://www.markstudios.com/research/orthopedic-surgeon-video-statistics},
  note = {Last verified 2026-11-08}
}

Our calculations and the evidence table are free to reuse with attribution and a link to this page. Each underlying figure remains the claim of its original publisher, and some publishers ask for a link when their figures are reused.

Sources

Download the evidence table (CSV)

1. Arthroplasty Today (Wong et al.), YouTube is a poor source of patient information for knee arthroplasty and knee osteoarthritis. (2018-11-07). Accessed 2026-11-08.
2. Orthopaedics & Traumatology: Surgery & Research (Celik et al.), Assessment of the Quality and Reliability of the Information on Rotator Cuff Repair on YouTube. (2019-12-24). Accessed 2026-11-08.
3. Journal of Clinical Orthopaedics and Trauma (Yadav et al.), YouTube - An unreliable source of information for Total hip replacement. (2020-08-26). Accessed 2026-11-08.
4. Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (Ng et al.), YouTube as a Source of Patient Information for Total Knee/Hip Arthroplasty: Quantitative Analysis of Video Reliability, Quality, and Content. (2021-10-15). Accessed 2026-11-08.
5. Spine Deformity (Rudisill et al.), YouTube as a source of information on pediatric scoliosis: a reliability and educational quality analysis. (2022-08-20). Accessed 2026-11-08.
6. Indian Journal of Orthopaedics (Mert et al.), Quality and Content Analysis of Carpal Tunnel Videos on YouTube. (2021-05-25). Accessed 2026-11-08.
7. Arthroscopy, Sports Medicine, and Rehabilitation (Martinez et al.), The Most Popular YouTube Videos About Shoulder Replacement Are of Poor Quality for Patient Education. (2023-04-20). Accessed 2026-11-08.
8. Neurospine (Subramanian et al.), Quality of Spine Surgery Information on Social Media: A DISCERN Analysis of TikTok Videos. (2023-12-31). Accessed 2026-11-08.
9. Arthroscopy (D'Ambrosi et al.), Quality of YouTube Videos Regarding Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction Using Quadriceps Tendon Autograft Is Unsatisfactory. (2024-01-06). Accessed 2026-11-08.
10. Journal of the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America (Chambers et al.), Hashtag Healthcare: An Assessment of Current Educational Quality and Patient Perceptions of Scoliosis on TikTok. (2024-09-14). Accessed 2026-11-08.
11. Healthcare (Krakowiak et al.), YouTube as a Source of Patient Information for Cervical Spine Fractures: A Content Quality and Audience Engagement Analysis. (2024-12-10). Accessed 2026-11-08.
12. Arthroscopy, Sports Medicine, and Rehabilitation (Travis et al.), Acute Knee Injury-Related TikTok Videos Are Frequently Inaccurate, Incomplete, and Created by Nonphysicians. (2025-05-31). Accessed 2026-11-08.
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Update policy and change log

We re-verify every figure quarterly and when a major source publishes a new edition. The next scheduled review is February 2027. Corrections go to contact@markstudios.com.

• Nov 8, 2026: First published with 684 figures from 89 publishers, each checked against its original source.
• Nov 8, 2026: Added the BMUS report’s current address to the “1 in 2 Americans” trace: its old boneandjointburden.org domain now redirects to an unrelated site, and the fourth edition is online at bmus-ors.org.
• Nov 9, 2026: Removed the YouTube channel and video IDs, links, names and video titles of patients’ personal-story channels from the public data files; those rows now carry neutral labels, so every count and total still adds up.
• Nov 9, 2026: Removed the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) residency match figures, and a journal’s DO match rate calculated from NRMP data; NRMP’s reports don’t permit use of their data with AI tools without written consent.