HOW DO WE SAVE MASS AMOUNTS OF MONEY FOR MEDICARE?? We make sure that the surgeries we do on seniors with lumbar spine arthritis are not merely to make money for the surgeons.
In a study spanning 5 years on seniors with lumbar spinal stenosis (an advanced degenerative condition of the lumbar spine), the number of complex (multilevel) fusions went up FIFTEEN times!! Sounds great if this was a better surgery than a simpler one, but unfortunately this is not even close–there was triple the risk of life threatening complications with the complex fusion. The price tag for this fiasco? $50,000 more for the complex surgery. Wow.
Good thing they need to hammer down on chiropractic claims. Wouldn’t want some evil chiropractor to rip Medicare off for $250…especially since our office uses Flexion Distraction which can be very successful for treatment of stenosis.