Policy remains top of mind among spine surgeons, and for some it’s a primary source of concern.

Ask Spine Surgeons is a weekly series of questions posed to spine surgeons around the country about clinical, business and policy issues affecting spine care. Becker’s invites all spine surgeon and specialist responses.

Next question: What’s three key tips you have for a spine surgeon looking to set up their own practice/business this year?

Please send responses to Carly Behm at cbehm@beckershealthcare.com by 5 p.m. CST Wednesday, June 12.

Editor’s note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length.

Question: What’s one thing keeping you up at night in 2024? 

Brian Gantwerker, MD. The Craniospinal Center of Los Angeles: Doom-scrolling, as I want to do late at night, I watch how the progression of teaching patients why healthcare is so broken is undermined by the efforts of insurance-funded think tanks. These people are paid to not only misinterpret the data from their own studies, they promulgate the nonsense online and then in front of Congress. There is so much gaslighting that I can see plainly, and it’s concerning.  Cutting through the dreck makes me happy, until we see these people sitting in front of Congress misrepresenting in order to drive more profit to their benefactors. This will stop at some point, and my concern is that it will end up in the complete transformation of our healthcare system to a giant, inefficient, expensive monolithic version of its worst self.

Chester Donnally, MD. Texas Spine Consultants (Dallas): We all appropriately complain about reimbursement, but I don’t think we ‘collectively’ do anything about it. Part of the reason we don’t do anything about it is we simply don’t have much guidance of where to unite. Local level? State? National? It would be great if I knew which PAC or leadership group is the best bang for our buck.