Spinal fusions serve as case study for debate over when certain surgeries are necessary (Washington Post)
NASS Executive Committee Responds to Washington Post Article (NASS rebuttal)
WASHINGTON POST - By some measures, Federico C. Vinas was a star surgeon. He performed three or four surgeries on a typical weekday at the Daytona Beach, Fla., hospital that employed him, and a review showed him to be nearly five times as busy as other neurosurgeons. The hospital paid him hundreds of thousands in incentive pay. In all, he earned as much as $1.9 million a year.Yet given his productivity, some hospital auditors wondered: Was all of the surgery really necessary?
The October jobs report and third-quarter gross domestic product are expected this week.
To answer that question, the hospital in early 2010 paid for an independent review of cases in which Vinas and two other neurosurgeons had performed a common procedure known as a spinal fusion. The review was conducted by board-certified neurosurgeons working for AllMed, a company accredited to audit health-care businesses.Of 10 spinal fusions by Vinas that were selected, nine were deemed not medically necessary, according to a summa...
