Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Orthop. Jun 18, 2015; 6(5): 409-412
Published online Jun 18, 2015. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v6.i5.409
Economic factors in the future delivery of spinal healthcare
Vincent J Rossi, Junyoung Ahn, Daniel D Bohl, Ehsan Tabaraee, Kern Singh
Vincent J Rossi, Junyoung Ahn, Daniel D Bohl, Ehsan Tabaraee, Kern Singh, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL 60612, United States
Author contributions: All authors made significant contributions toward the preparation of this manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest: Author Kern Singh has received fees for serving as a consultant for DePuy, Zimmer, Stryker and Globus, royalties from Zimmer, Stryker, Pioneer, Lippincott, Thieme, Jaypee Publishing, and Slack Publishing, and as a board member for Vital 5 LLC, TruVue Surgical, Avaz, and Bijali. The other authors have nothing to disclose.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Kern Singh, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Rush University Medical Center, 1611 W. Harrison St., Suite #300, Chicago, IL 60612, United States. kern.singh@rushortho.com
Telephone: +1-312-4322373 Fax: +1-708-4925373
Received: March 6, 2015
Peer-review started: March 8, 2015
First decision: April 10, 2015
Revised: April 22, 2015
Accepted: May 7, 2015
Article in press: May 8, 2015
Published online: June 18, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: Following the enactment and implementation of the patient protection and affordable care act, healthcare providers will witness significant changes in how payments are made for their services. In this editorial, the authors describe the potential benefits and the risks associated with a transition toward the bundled reimbursement system for patients and spine surgeons alike.