Moderator: F. Todd Wetzel, MD
Clinical decision-making and patient-centric spine care are significantly compromised by a single fundamental deficiency: the inability to make a “precise” diagnosis for most. The growing interest in delivering value-based, individualized care begs for more diagnostic precision and accuracy that in turn identifies standardized predictably-effective treatments for each individual. That’s a quality currently rarely found in spine care, yet employer and union purchasers, increasingly interested in value, now actively seek solutions that can assure that care delivery is appropriate, necessary, and effective.
This symposium will focus on the necessity of disrupting our conventional diagnostic methodologies, including our strong bias toward the need to identify an anatomic pain source that is often either inaccurate or of insufficient precision to direct standardized, predictably-effective treatments. One means of making a precise diagnosis for most will be presented.
Upon completion of this session, participants should gain strategies to:
- Appreciate the costly consequences of an imprecise diagnosis;
- Improve delivery of high-value care to payers who are beginning to demand it;
- Identify predictably-effective treatment for most by first establishing and then treating a mechanically-based precise diagnosis.
Agenda
In Pursuit of High-Value Spine Care
F. Todd Wetzel, MD
Does Spine Care Need Disruptive Innovation?
Jason Hwang, MD
Healthcare Purchasers’ Pursuit of High-Value Spine Care
Brian Klepper, PhD
Disrupting the Tyranny of the Anatomic Diagnosis
Ronald G. Donelson, MD, MS
Questions and Answers