Objective To explore the effects of referral and rehabilitation status of patients with total knee arthroplasty (TKA) under the mode of medical alliance.Methods One hundred and ninety cases with total knee arthroplasty in the secondary rehabilitation hospitals after referral from a tertiary hospital from January 2016 to January 2017 were analyzed, including general demographic data, disease and surgical data, rehabilitation data after referral, hospital day and change of medical expenses of the tertiary hospital and rehabilitation hospitals before and after the promotion of the medical alliance mode.Results After receiving the rehabilitation treatment in secondary rehabilitation hospitals, the range of motion, muscle strength and some other indices of the patients' surgical legs were significantly improved (P<0.05). And the hospital day of the surgical hospital was shorten from (15.05±6.59) d to (12.97±5.24) d, and medical expenses were decreased by 2.18% in total, 4.76% per knee and 14.01% in rehabilitation costs.Conclusions Under the mode of medical alliance, transferring patients with TKA from a tertiary hospital to secondary rehabilitation hospitals in their early postoperative phase can facilitate recovery of the patients, and it can also help to reduce hospital day and medical expenses, thus to optimize the allocation of medical resources.