With medical costs under constant scrutiny, the Vanderbilt Orthopaedic Institute Center for Health Policy conducted a study titled “Patterns of Costs and Spending Among Orthopaedic Surgeons Across the US.” The authors sought to determine orthopaedic surgeon contributions to total health care expenditures, and the results were recently published online in the American Journal of Orthopaedics. With 1,214 people responding to the survey (a 61% response rate), results showed that the average monthly expenditure per US orthopaedic surgeon is $33,436, or a little more than $400,000 a year. That means that the 20,400 orthopaedic surgeons spend about $8.2 billion a year. The results showed some differences in spending by type of practice and geographic location, with private practices in the Northeast tending to spend the most. The findings may help orthopaedic surgeons analyze their spending to lower costs without sacrificing quality.