MedTech Voice (MTV)

🚀 MTV MONDAY MORNING Spine MARKET Report. Q1 Earning reports are out and online. As we know, there is much more to any story than Stock price and EPS... this industry has never solely been about stock price and earnings. Like many things, just like your sales numbers - EARNINGS are a lagging indicator of ACTIVITY. Alphatec Spine is disrupting an archaic model and changing the Spine market. You cannot look at their growth, the culture, the people, the standing room only Lunch & Learn on PTP at AANS, or the 30-doctor dinners and just say... Stock price bad! That's not how this game works. - ATEC is a stallion at the top quadrant of the crazy hot matrix. - Sometimes it doesn't make sense. - Sometimes they shouldn't be able to gallop. - And yet, wild horses will run for days. Of course, ATEC isn't the only game and there are many more players at the Roundtable impacting other important and more significant Data - - Market Share - Growth - Leadership - Distribution These are the "pie charts" we at #MTV2 pay attention to. We talk to EVERYONE and we capture all the Data points. DATA POINTS - Who is using what? - What doctors are on which projects? - What rep or disty is moving? - Who's teaching what techniques? - How many of the top 10 users are consultants? - What is the #MESSAGING on LinkedIn, Social? - Where is the expected growth coming from? - How's their inventory and asset management? - How adept is the sales force to Nav, Robotics, Enabling? - How are the Open vs. MIS numbers? Still 80% open? - Not for long... You're not ripping up my back or anyone I know. - Even Deformity can be done MIS - find the right surgeon married with the right procedural solutions and the right OR team. WHO ARE THE OTHER PLAYERS: Orthofix / SeaSpine - dust settling from the merger / leadership. Massimo doesn't play around. He's exceptional. Leadership and culture is very solid here. Mike Hall, Shaeffer - Legit. Again, I was with them at AANS, IMAST. Team culture is fire. Medtronic just brought over some ELITE Market-moving Marketing leadership. Same team that built the Posterior Fixation market at NuVa. They will make an impact. They have budget. They have distributors. Sleeping giant just woke up. Stryker is not going anywhere. I've recently connected with Eric Major and look forward to getting to know him and the outlook on Spine. DePuy Synthes Spine is massive, poised for a run, hungry. They have Fantastic Doctors, who are all engaged. New product launch at IMAST was amazing. Watch out for the Red wave. Globus Medical - While MTV disagrees with the dissolving of a massive name and a brand in Spine - NuVasive, the foundation for Lateral Access. I realize we are biased, nostalgic and we don't call the shots. MTV was pleasantly surprised on our visit to Lusk Blvd. during IMAST. Arthrex - Darkhorse. They have Billions. Will they acquire a Spine company?

2024 has been tremendous. As I reflect upon this year, I want to thank our hard-working Johnson & Johnson MedTech | Orthopaedics Joint Reconstruction team. This was a year of change and evolution in many ways. We witnessed the advent of our Johnson & Johnson MedTech business unit. Notably, we introduced several new solutions at American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons (AAHKS) 2024; Velys UKA, KINCISE 2, Watson Extraction System, and our JJMT Joint Reconstruction Solutions In Motion platform. Over the three remaining days of 2024, I'll share a series of brief discussions had with Jameil ‘Jay’ Pendleton™ and MedTech Voice (MTV) discussing these innovations and more.

Maybe I should stop accepting insurance. I saw a patient with a foot drop, a horribly painful leg, and a lumbar disc herniation. He was in tears, with a progressive neurological deficit. So we decided to skip conservative options and do surgery. Anyone can guess what happened next… INSURANCE DENIAL! Not surprised. So I asked our office to schedule a “peer-to-peer” call. Here’s the response I got: “Doc, I spoke to Evolent and they don’t set up appointments. You need to call 1-800-424-4909. They will connect you with a nurse reviewer.” Really? The surgeon needs to call a 1-800 number to be graced with the opportunity… to request a call-back… from a nurse reviewer? So I did it. I called and set up a review for 2pm. And… No one called. Insult on top of injury (to my patient). So maybe it’s time to stop taking insurance. Chris Deacon Benjamin Schwartz, MD, MBA

5 Good Minutes is back! With one of the biggest rising stars in the Spine lndustry. My friend, your friend, Neurosurgeon Hani Malone, M.D. Grateful for his time during SMISS. San Diego Spine Foundation

Fascinating Podcast: Sanjay Konakondla & Juan Uribe, MD https://lnkd.in/e-j3ADpA

This is a big deal. Think about all the lives that could be impacted.

Many thanks to all the faculty and attendees at our 10th Annual ISDS meeting this past weekend in NYC. We had a record attendance of over 300 participants from 16 countries and rave reviews from many who came to hear from leading experts around the US and world about the latest assessments and treatment for adult with various forms of spinal deformities. Special shout outs to our 2 international guest speakers Prof Yong QIU from Drum Tower Hospital in Nanjing China, and Prof jc le huec from Université de Bordeaux in France who both gave outstanding Keynote lectures, along with my long time friend David Polly who honored us with a fantastic talk summarizing his amazing career in Spinal Deformity Surgery as he finishes his glorified operative practice at the end of this month. I want to also congratulate our Och Spine/Columbia University Irving Medical Center research team for sweeping the top 3 Podium presentations from abstracts submitted presented by: Fthi M. Hassan, MPH, Roy Miller, and Ted Shi! Looking forward to seeing everyone at the 11th ISDS meeting on 12/12 and 13 2025 in New York City! Erik Lewerenz Evan Joiner Matthew Cooney Michael J. Strong Josephine Coury Justin L. Reyes Riley Sevensky Demi Tega BroadWater, LLC

TheAthleteSpine - Dr. Michael McCarthy MD, MPH A fun guest joins Venu Nemani, MD, PhD on TheAthleteSpine for this most recent episode — Michael H. McCarthy, who crossed paths with me multiple times during our training days (Midwest Orthopaedics at RUSH, Northwestern University, Hospital for Special Surgery)! Dr. McCarthy is a Partner and Orthopaedic Spine Surgeon at the Indiana Spine Group and also serves as an Associate Professor for the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Indiana University Health. We dive into the similarities of training as an athlete versus training to become a surgeon, and the ongoing training that we as surgeons undergo.  ✅ Actually set aside time to reflect and purposefully learn. ✅ Refine physical skills through improving mental engagement during a task. ✅ Practice focusing solely on the task at hand. ✅ Develop a program for deliberate practice in which you can undergo critical assessments to allow for graduated improvement. ✅ Find others to “train” and “Work” with intermittently for feedback ✅ Create and consistently review step-by-step notes on specific techniques to develop proficiency that can be translated directly to intraoperative opportunities. Just as athletes refine their craft through dedication and purpose, surgeons too must adopt a mindset of continual improvement — it’s called the “practice” of medicine for a reason. In this episode, we explore how deliberate practice, mental engagement, and reflective learning form are critical for growth in both fields. Whether on the field (even the weekend warrior) or in the operating room, progress demands focus, feedback, and a commitment to simply “get better”. Enjoy the fun conversation that we have chatting about howe we can find ways to “elevate performance”, cultivate resilience early on (even in our young kids), and embrace the similarities that unite athletes and surgeons in their relentless pursuit. #athlete #surgeon #training #practice #teamwork #learning #spine #spinesurgery

Event — Happening in Chicago! 📆Monday Dec 2nd • 5:30-7:30 PM Don’t miss this Physician-led event: Reach out to our friend Paul Slosar, MD, MHCDS for more information. Link in comments ⤵️

Raise your hand if you roll your eyes at the term “value-based care”. I’ve seen the equation a million times. You know the one. Value = Outcomes / Cost It’s simple enough. And yet… I haven’t seen anyone put all the puzzle pieces together. There’s endless research on the outcomes of one surgery versus the next. And there’s more and more work on the costs of what we do (guilty as charged). But these are like two ships passing in the night. The left hand doesn’t what the right hand is doing. Why isn’t everyone trying to quantify the actual value of surgeries (or any treatment)… by combining outcomes and costs at the patient-level? I’ve searched around, and there’s not much out there. We decided to do something about this. This is our second publication where we introduce the Operative Value Index (OVI)… link in the comments. I define the OVI as the improvement in patient-reported outcomes for a surgery, per $1000 spent in the operating room. The outcome must be relevant to the surgery performed, and the expenses must be calculated using time-driven activity-based costing. In our hands at Thomas Jefferson, microdiscectomy provided more value than transforaminal endoscopic discectomy.. as defined by the OVI. Fair warning: this needs to be tested across multiple practices… our study is just a small, historical snapshot in time by a few surgeons. What does everyone think? Do transforaminal endoscopic lumbar discectomies provide more value than microdiscectomies? How much do the particulars of the disc herniation matter? How much does surgeon skill matter? Site of service? And what if costs were tracked across time… and not just in the OR? Raymond Gardocki Kern Singh Robert Masson MD, FACS FABNS Jahangir 'John' Asghar, MD