What is the value-based episode worth per case — at your volume?

Under TEAM and the Ambulatory Specialty Model, the episode — not the implant — is where the money is scored. Estimate the episode dollars a personalized, implant-agnostic MSK program can create per case, and what falls through to your P&L after the program fee.

Annual joint arthroplasty cases

Total knee, hip, and shoulder replacement volume at your site or across your surgeons.

Early-complication reduction assumed

0.5 pt (conservative)1.0 pt2.5 pt

Percentage-point drop in the 30-day complication/readmission rate from patient-specific planning. Each prevented event ≈ $12,000.

The alternative on the table is a capital surgical robot

If checked, the model credits avoided robot capital + disposables (~$700/case) that a no-capital, pay-per-case program does not incur.

Estimated annual episode value created*

$—

across your cases, before program fee

$—

episode value / case

$—

net to your P&L / case*

Readmission / complication avoidanceDirect 30-day TEAM lever · $12k × reduction	$—
Post-acute shift (SNF → home)Historically the largest bundle lever	$400
OR-time efficiencyPre-planned, patient-specific case	$300
Capital + disposable avoidancevs a $1.5M capital robot	$700
Episode value / case*	$—
Less: program fee / caseIllustrative — assumed $250 pending final terms	–$250
Net kept / case*	$—

What this model deliberately does not count. Revision avoidance is real — revisions run ~$25,000 in hospital cost apiece — but revisions occur years after surgery, outside every 30-day episode window. So it is a multi-year quality and surgeon-reputation value, not an episode dollar, and it is excluded here to keep the episode math honest. It is upside on top of the figures above.

Why these are the levers

The episode is scored on Parts A + B over 30 days. Four things move it.

Readmission avoidance is the one lever that lands squarely inside the TEAM window — CMS puts each prevented complication at $10,000–$14,000. Post-acute shift (getting patients home instead of to skilled nursing) was the single biggest source of savings in every prior CMS joint bundle. OR efficiency comes from operating a pre-planned, patient-specific case. And when the real alternative is a capital robot, a no-capital, pay-per-case program avoids the amortization and per-case disposables entirely.

Personalize the surgery, measure the outcome with registry-grade data, and get paid on the value you created — that is the whole MSKvalue episode. The calculator above is the arithmetic of it at your volume.

See the ASC program → Read the per-case economics