TranS1 Inc. gets business boost (StarNews Online)
TranS1 Inc. has received a boost to its business. A major health insurer in New Jersey has decided to reimburse the costs of the medical-device company’s minimally invasive lumbar spinal fusion procedure.
The Wilmington-based company’s AxiaLIF procedure is like other spinal fusion surgeries with the exception that the spine is reached from beneath, rather than the front or back of the body, president and CEO Ken Reali said Thursday.
The insurer, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, covers about 3.6 million people.
In January, Humana Inc. also approved the procedure for reimbursement.
The Blue Cross Blue Shield approval is “something we have been working on for a while,” Reali said. Payers won’t cover a procedure “unless you provide safety and efficacy for that procedure.
“We continue to talk with many other insurers and talk with their medical directors,” he continued. “We feel progress is being made and certainly a lot of the new publications over the past three months will be fuel to that conversation.”
Surgeons will write a paper on their results using TranS1’s procedure, Reali explained. It then goes through a peer review process – by other spine surgeons – and will be published in a journal specific to spine fusions, he said.
“It’s important for insurers and medical directors, because they want to see peer review literature that shows safety and efficacy.”