The Latest

The HHS Office of Inspector General has issued a special fraud alert focused on specific attributes of physician-owned distributorships the agency believes "produce substantial fraud and abuse risk and pose dangers to patient safety."

Westside Surgical Hospital in Houston, a multispecialty physican-owend hospital, has acquired the Mazor Robotics Renaissance system, one of seven systems being used in Texas, according to a Mazor Robotics news release.

Jeffrey Carlson, MD, is an orthopedic spine surgeon and the president and managing partner of Orthopaedic and Spine Center, in Newport News, Va. He is also the chief of surgery at Bon Secours Mary Immaculate Hospital in Newport News.

A. Nick Shamie, MD, a spine surgeon with the UCLA Health System, discusses how the sequester and looming budget cuts will impact spine surgeons in the future.

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Board of Directors has approved its first appropriate use criteria, according to an AAOS news release.

Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Milton (Mass.) announced it will open phase one of its orthopedic center Monday, according to a Boston report.

A research letter, published online in JAMA Internal Medicine, states that in a study of 1,000 requests for MRIs of the lumbar spine, nearly half were ordered for indications considered inappropriate or of uncertain value, according to a Medscape Today…

Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside, Calif., purchased a NavioPFS System from Blue Belt Technologies to add robotic knee replacement surgeries.

At the 11th Annual Orthopedic, Spine and Pain Management-Driven ASC Conference, in Chicago, Scott Glaser, MD, will give a presentation titled "Interventional Pain Management – New Concepts to Reduce ER Visits, Hospitalization and Re-Admissions."

Spine Team Texas based in Rockwall has announced that it is the first facility in the Dallas area to implant Precision Spectra, a spinal cord stimulator.