No appeal by a health politician, no matter how insistent, has ever forced all the operational structures of our health-care system to examine their own efficiencies and cost reduction potentials as has SARS-CoV‑2. Fast-track surgery, developed long before the current pandemic, can become an indispensable element of modern hospital routines through the integration of interlocked care structures. Patient satisfaction and clinical outcome can be improved by significantly shortening hospital stays, decreasing complication rates, and by additionally strengthening the competence and motivation of the patients involved. Hospital staff could be relieved of heavy workloads, and overall costs could be reduced by involving external prehabilitation centers. It is now necessary to further develop standards for the establishment and implementation of appropriately coordinated prehabilitation and rehabilitation concepts for elective total hip and knee replacement surgery and, ideally, to save resources at the same time through regional networking and integration.