Here are eight things for spinal surgeons to know for April 23, 2015.
Medtronic, J&J partner with IBM
Medtronic and Johnson & Johnson are among the big medical firms partnering with IBM to collect patient data and create health-related apps. The data will be collected from willing patients and IBM will convert data into apps for fitness, nutrition, heart-rate and blood pressure.
Stryker sales up 3.2% and earnings soar 220%
For the first quarter of 2015, the orthopedics net sales hit $1 billion, a 2.4 percent increase in the quarter. The medsurg net sales increased 4.6 percent in the quarter to reach $927 million. Additionally, United States sales reached $1.6 billion, up 8.5 percent.
Obama signs 'doc fix' bill
President Barack Obama signed "doc fix" legislation on Thursday, overhauling the way Medicare pays physicians and repealing the flawed sustainable growth rate. The bill is expected to cost more than $210 billion over 10 years with about $73 billion of that cost offset with spending cuts or new revenue.
Global orthobiologics market to see immense growth
The market is projected to reach a $7.9 billion value by 2019. It was valued at $5.7 billion in 2014 and is estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 6.7 percent from 2014 to 2019.
Top 10 specialties with highest pay — Orthopedists lead the pack
Orthopedists earn the most from patient care as compared to physicians from other specialties, with $421,000 a year. Cardiology comes a distant second with $376,000 a year.
Study examines percutaneous K-wireless pedicle screw fixation
The study, published in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine, found that the overall screw placement accuracy rate was 96.7 percent. Also, the average screw insertion time was 6.92 minutes.
Twin Cities Orthopedics, St. Croix Orthopaedics to merge
Twin Cities Orthopedics and St. Croix Orthopaedics in Minnesota are merging to create one large physician practice, including more than 100 orthopedic surgeons. Currently, Twin Cities Orthopedics has 24 locations and St. Croix Orthopaedics has 11 locations.
Dr. Brian Scholl develops software to ease ICD-10 transition for physicians
The spine surgeon developed BoneCoder10 from SuperCoder, which is an ICD-10-CM workflow solution designed for physicians, coders and nurses to transition to ICD-10 coding. The solution organizes codes to classify diagnoses, making it easier for providers to learn without extensive training.