Frank D. Vrionis

You don't want to have 30-year-olds with fusions because then inevitably they're going to have more issues down the road.

If somebody is very old and their spine is

is very rigid and semi-fused, so to speak, then motion preservation may not be the best option there.

I think still, to some degree, it's an art and not a science, to some degree, because we're still learning about how we effectively can utilize these type of technologies.

I think increasingly the biggest disruptor, the biggest problem we have is coming from the insurance industry and the cost of healthcare products.

That's the biggest issue and whether, first of all, patients can afford insurance because insurance is very expensive.

Second, whether insurance will cover certain items because as you know, we don't have too many

restrictions as to how much a new drug or a new device can cost in the U.S.

You know, FDA delivers or is concerned with safety, but there's no price control, so anybody can essentially

price it any way they want.

So pricing of new technologies or new products, lack of insurance coverage, denials by insurance, and affordability of health care is the potential disruptors that I see that can curtail innovation and force us against the wall.

I mean, physicians are in the practice of medicine because they like what they do, but we constantly have to shape what we do and fight for what we believe with a lot of other stakeholders in the healthcare industry in order to get the maximum benefit for the patient.

And that's not an easy thing, you know, and something...

has changed over the years.

It was not like that when I first practiced medicine.

We didn't have to worry about those things.

But now this is peer reviews, peer-to-peer, so to speak, denials, things like that are going to be obstacles in the health care delivery because of cost, primarily.

And they're going to limit

you know, the access of the best technologies to a lot of patients.

Well, we really cannot strategize on those things because they're beyond our controls, to be honest with you.