Just repeating my boring old post on padded shorts. (another poster, mountain biker, recommended G-Form).
While I did cycle some during recovery, I have started real road riding again (left BHR Sept 2013) and had concerns about falling on my hip. I read in one of these posts about POC VPD shorts and got some for peace of mind (there may be other brands, but the VPD technology sounded serious, so I went with them). I wear them over my normal bike sorts because I don't want to interfere with the padding. It looks mildly funky, but after the indignities of hip surgeries and crutches and all, who cares.
Now here's the thing--in 8 years of riding, I had never fallen--seriously, never, always successfully caught myself in time. But this past weekend, I went straight over, smack onto my left hip (and apparently fell perfectly because I never let go of my handlebar grip; was avoiding very fast motorcycles that appeared out of nowhere while crossing a street; had a partly clipped in, strongly breaking thing occur so fast I didn't know what happened). And, I had ZERO pain, none at all. It was like nothing happened! Well, actually, my left hand became really sore, but is now clearing up after some icing. I was so relieved and I LOVE my VPD shorts. I highly recommend them.