There are a lot of factors that go into a successful spine surgery, but not all cases will bring in money for a practice. Two spine surgeons shared what affects procedure profitability for them.
Note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity.
Question: What are the most and least profitable procedures for your practice?
Issada Thongtrangan, MD. MicroSpine (Scottsdale, Ariz.): The most profitable surgeries in my practice are cervical disc replacements and minimally invasive spinal fusions in the ASC as they can control the cost and expenses, especially the implants and biologic cost.
The least profitable is revision decompression lumbar surgery as it takes longer than usual and there is potential risk of complications which may require transferring the patient to the hospital.
Christian Zimmerman, MD. St. Alphonsus Medical Group and SAHS Neuroscience Institute (Boise, Idaho): The most and least profitable procedures are based on DRG coding and represent workload delivered per unit case. The lengthier multilevel stabilization procedures (barring pre-morbidity) usually affect this number as opposed to the simpler one-level microdiscectomy. As a healthcare delivery system employed physician, the complexities of patient presentation, acuity and previous surgeries also affects applied charges and hospital LOS.