How many PTs can you hire for the cost of the hospital charges of one spinal fusion? The recent studies published ahead of print in Spine have made me ill. First the trends for complex spinal surgery are getting worse! I repeat getting worse. The study by Bae et al. Nationwide trends in the surgical management of lumbar spinal stenosis demonstrated the alarming increase and the resultant costs as demonstrated by this graph above. Maybe we should hire 2 personal Physical Therapists for the cost of one spinal surgery? If that does not get your attention consider that the likelihood of re-hospitalization after fusion surgery is now nearly 10% during the first year and nearly 15% at year two according to Modhia et al. Less PT is not the answer to our aging population. At the end of the day we are going to have to do what we do best and that is restoring function and health.
Tim
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