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S P I N E
S U R G E R Y
All told, here's what you can expect to spend:
The Spine Shopping List
Jackson table
$85K to $124K
Headlight
$6K to $7K
2 drills
$20K to $60K
2 instrument sets
$6K to 10K
Microscope
$125K to $180K
Bipolar mallis
$5K to $30K
C-arm
$30K to $150K
TOTAL
$277K to $561K
We put out more than $500,000 on equipment and budgeted for staff.
Our third-party payor contracts were hardly better than Medicare contracts. But because we were locked in, they were unwilling to negotiate.
So we went out-of-network. We've gotten letters of protection for nearly
all our spine cases, and worked with our surgeons and lawyers to ensure
the language is solid and everything is thoroughly explained to patients
— so we can be sure to get paid.
We recently went in-network with 1 payor, and want to eventually
do so with all our third-party insurers. But for now, we're taking it
slow, because we make about 10 times more revenue on spine than
we do on other procedures.
Outstanding outcomes
We knew the surgeons were looking at us as a testing ground, waiting
N O V E M B E R 2012 | O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E
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