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More research likely needed on outpatient orthopedic spine surgery
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As the potential and practicality of orthopedic spine surgery performed in the outpatient setting gains traction with both patients and surgeons, questions still remain about reimbursement, risk-to-benefit ratios, guidelines for follow-up care and decisions about which procedures should be done in this environment.
“The question for spinal surgery is what are the appropriate kinds of procedures to be done in an ambulatory setting and which ones are best suited to be done in a hospital?” Andrew C. Hecht, MD, chief of spine surgery and associate professor in orthopedics and neurosurgery at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, told Orthopedics Today. “Some ambulatory centers allow for an observation status overnight. Also, some ambulatory surgery centers are either next to a hospital and have a relationship with them so that if someone needed to stay longer they could, but some do not have this relationship.”
According to Kern Singh, MD, associate director in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Rush University Medical Center and co-director of the Minimally Invasive Spine Institute at Rush, two aspects that are driving more outpatient spine surgery include the high patient demand for a quick return to function and the need for lower costs among spine surgery procedures.
Click here to read the Cover Story in the February issue of Orthopedics Today.