Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1273484
10 SPINE SURGEONS The 'new normal' in spine: 11 surgeon predictions By Laura Dyrda What will the 'new normal' look like in spine post-pandemic? Charles Branch Jr., MD. Executive Director of the Spine Service Line at Wake Forest Baptist Health System (Winston-Salem, N.C.): e new normal for spine surgeons will include more patient engage- ment through technology. It is quite possible that holographic imag- ing of patients in their home setting will allow for a more complete telehealth visit. Our clinic visits of the future will be a mixture of tele- health and face-to-face patient visits and the proportions will be driv- en by the practice type and patient demographics. In the near term, I am concerned that there will be a constriction in new technology availability for spine surgeons given the dramatic losses that health- care systems have endured and will continue to expect in the future and in the weeks ahead. On the other hand, I believe we will be able to generate better and more evidence-based outcomes that will guide our decision making or give us valuable predictive analytics in the future. Richard Wohns, MD. Founder and President of NeoSpine and Mi- crosurgical Spine Center (Puyallup, Wash.): We are in uncharted territory and it is at least clear that we will not return to the 'old nor- mal.' e 'new normal' will likely include a greater interest by all stake- holders in outpatient spine surgery centers, promotion of telehealth options for patient care, and a new awareness of the 'costs' of doing business. e 'costs' include risks to health care providers, the under- lying economics of healthcare in hospitals, clinics and ASCs, plus the role of medical insurance. A silver lining may be less numbers of frivolous lawsuits that plague the house of medicine, as patients will hopefully realize how many healthcare providers risked or lost their lives taking care of patients with COVID-19. is pandemic has been a severe shock to the entire health- care delivery system and severe shocks historically lead to severe reper- cussions. At the end of the day, I am optimistic that we will have learned painful lessons that will help us provide better care to our patients. Andrew Hecht, MD. Chief of Spine Surgery at Mount Sinai Hospi- tal and Mount Sinai Health System (New York City): e new nor- mal will be less outpatient and surgical volume until there is a vaccine, truly effective drug, or herd immunity. Surgeons and patients must now weigh additional risks related to COVID-19 when seeing a pa- tient or scheduling a surgery. Choll Kim, MD, PhD. Spine Institute of San Diego: For those of us who embrace the rapidly improving web-based remote technol- ogy, the new normal will be the ability to reach out to patients and colleagues without the limitations of distance. My goal is to create a group of spine surgeons working together to create a virtual center of excellence. e virtual center of excellence will allow like-minded surgeons from around the globe to share knowledge and insights to improve their practice. Similarly, patients will be able to easily find and interact with such centers of excellence via telemedicine. With iterative improvements, I anticipate great advances in the field of spine surgery, especially in terms of developing and growing true centers of excellence. Scott Boden, MD. Chair of the Department of Orthopaedics at Em- ory University School of Medicine and Vice President for Business Innovation at Emory Healthcare (Atlanta): e 'new normal' will likely mean seeing fewer patients less oen in the office, but I don't see the need for spine surgery changing much. ere will, of course, be continued screening and preoperative COVID testing of surgical patients at least until there is a successful vaccine. $1.75M settlement reached by spine surgeon, DOJ to resolve SpineFrontier kickback allegations By Alan Condon S pine surgeon Jeffrey Carlson, MD, has agreed to pay the U.S. Department of Justice $1.75 million to settle allegations that he accepted kickbacks from Spine- Frontier. Dr. Carlson, of Newport News, Va.-based Orthopaedic & Spine Center, is the sixth spine surgeon to settle fraud alle- gations relating to interactions with the spine device man- ufacturer. DOJ in March filed a False Claims Act case against Spine- Frontier, alleging the company illegally paid more than $8 million in kickbacks to spine surgeons from October 2013 through December 2018. SpineFrontier, its executives and a third-party body — Im- partial Medical Experts — are accused of paying spine sur- geons to use the company's devices and concealing kick- backs as "consulting fees" for product evaluations. Kingsley Chin, MD, CEO and founder of SpineFrontier, is the owner of IME, which DOJ alleged is a "sham" entity cre- ated to hide the kickbacks from the federal government. Dr. Carlson is accused of accepting illegal kickbacks from IME and consulting payments from SpineFrontier for time spent during surgeries, which Medicare and other govern- ment healthcare programs were already paying him. Dr. Carlson also admitted to accepting free meals from SpineFrontier for himself and his staff on "almost every day" that he used one of the company's devices, which amounted to thousands of dollars. n