Becker's Spine Review

6 SPINE The spine procedures eligible for UnitedHealthcare's new gold card program By Claire Wallace O n Sept. 1, UnitedHealthcare released a list of procedures that will be eligible for its new physician gold card program, which aims to save patients and providers time by allowing qualifying providers to skip the prior authorization process for a number of procedure codes. e program is set to launch on Oct. 1. Here are the spine procedure codes that will be eligible: 72125: CT cervical spine without contrast material 72126: CT cervical spine with contrast material 72127: CT cervical spine with or without contrast material 72128: CT thoracic spine without contrast material 72129: CT thoracic spine with contrast material 72130: CT thoracic spine with or without contrast material 72131: CT lumbar spine without contrast material 72132: CT lumbar spine with contrast material 72133: CT lumbar spine with or without contrast material 72141: MRI spinal canal cervical without contrast material 72142: MRI spinal canal cervical with contrast material 72146: MRI spinal canal thoracic without contrast material 72147: MRI spinal canal thoracic with contrast material 72148: MRI spinal canal lumbar without contrast material 72149: MRI spinal canal lumbar with contrast material 72156: MRI spinal canal cervical with or without contrast material 72157: MRI spinal canal thoracic with or without contrast material 72158: MRI spinal canal lumbar with or without contrast material 72159: MRA spinal canal with or without contrast material 29851: Arthroscopy aid TX spine/FX knee with fixed joint n Where do spine robots shine, falter in lumbar pedicle screw placement? By Carly Behm F acet joint violation by pedicle screws under robotic guidance was reduced at some parts of the lumbar spine compared to CT navigation during lumbar spine surgery, according to a study published Aug. 12 in e Spine Journal. Researchers took cohorts of adult lumbar spinal fusion patients who had CT navigation guidance and robotic navigation and compared data including the number of facet violations and their types. e study found that robotic assistance significantly reduced the rate of rostral facet joint violations at the L2 and L3 levels compared to CT navigation, but not at levels L4 and L5. Facet violations were approaching almost one-third of patients who had screws at the L5 level. Spine surgeon donates $120M to UCLA By Carly Behm S pine surgeon and philanthropist Gary Michelson, MD, and his wife, Alya, donated $120 million to the University of California Los Angeles for its California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy. The gift designated $100 million to establish two research entities — one for rapid vaccine development and one on leveraging the microbiome to advance human health, according to an Aug. 27 news release from UCLA. Another $20 million endowment will provide research grants to scientists in immunotherapy, human immunology and vaccine research. "Immunology is the mediator of nearly all human diseases, whether we're talking about cancer or heart disease or Alzheimer's," Dr. Michelson said in the release. "The vision for this institute is to become a 'field of dreams' — the world's leading center for the study of the immune system to develop advanced immunotherapies to prevent, treat and cure all of the diseases that afflict people today and to end these diseases in our lifetime." Dr. Michelson is a spine surgeon and has nearly 1,000 individual patents. He is co-founder and chair of the institute's board, which will be housed at UCLA's research park. n

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