The U.S. Department of Justice continued its crackdown on unlawful kickback arrangements this year, with four big spine cases catching the attention of Becker's readers:
Humana has widened its coverage policies to include minimally invasive sacroiliac joint fusion using triangular titanium implants, which covers SI-Bone's iFuse system.
Patients at the Department of Veterans Affairs' spinal cord injury centers will be first to receive Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine from the federal agency, Stars and Stripes reports.
Alexandre Rasouli, MD, reportedly performed the first spine surgery with Centinel Spine's new angled endplates intended for the prodisc L lumbar total disc replacement system.
Researchers from New York City-based Hospital for Special Surgery are using a novel method for evaluating bone density that may be able to more accurately predict which patients would have poor outcomes after spinal fusion.
Physicians at Balgrist University Hospital in Zurich recently performed the first "holographically navigated" spine surgery with Microsoft's HoloLens 2 headset, according to a Dec. 14 report by TweakTown.
Florida Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale named neurosurgeon Guillermo Pasarin, MD, "Physician of the Quarter 2," Miami's Community Newspapers reports.
The International Association of Top Professionals named Robert Holtzman, MD, a neurosurgeon at Neurological Surgery PC in New Hyde Park, N.Y., Doctor of the Decade for 2021, according to a Dec. 9 news release.
Surgeons and specialists are bracing for another challenging year as further Medicare reimbursement cuts are planned, with commercial payers likely to follow suit.
Nima Salari, MD, was reportedly the first spine surgeon to implant the new 12-degree hyperlordotic dualX interbody cage after it was launched by Amplify Surgical.
Neurosurgeon Abdallah Farrukh, MD, has been re-elected to the Antelope Valley Hospital board of directors, which he has served on since 2000, according to the Antelope Valley Press.