This article is not about any one table. This article is about decompression. This article is telling all salespeople to stop pointing fingers at tables and accept the facts. If you read, “Medical Surgeon Doctors buying utility cheap knives at Home Depot to avoid paying for expensive surgeon scalpels in Surgeries” Would you believe it? Well, don’t it is absolutely NOT true. Scalpels cost doctors $85.00 dollars and up, blades not included.
Both these blades cut quite well. Utility knives are made of hard steel to cut hard sheetrock, wires, wood pieces, almost anything in construction, and are cheap. On the other hand, Surgeons' scalpels are made of very fine “Surgical Steel,” and so their cost is some 85 times more than a utility knife that cuts as good apparently.
At first sight, it would seem a surgeon could just go to a Home Depot and purchase those utility knives, sterilize them well and save lots of money in cutting human flesh using those knives instead of surgical scalpels, don’t you think? Why then do surgeons pay so much more for these “scalpels,” you may think? Well, is it because surgical steel is so much more expensive in making it, and to obtain such an extraordinary smooth human or animal flesh cut that bleeds properly?
If you examine these cuts using forensic microscopes, the end result of a surgeon scalpel cut or properly called “incision” on the flesh you may discover the traces left on each side of the cut area are dramatically different than if you used an ordinary knife. Under a microscope, you may see mountains of micro rippled flesh tears very different when a proper surgical scalpel is used. Instead, with a scalpel, it is a very clean and smooth, surely incredibly different smooth resulting cut.
Now, what if I told you the screws and other hardware used in this surgery came from Home Depot. Well, let’s look at the facts.
The Risks of Spinal Surgery are Enormous
The risks of spinal surgery are enormous, yet the average American does not understand the risk. No different, and there’s a difference in decompression tables, there’s a difference in the hardware that certain surgeons use and the doctors using them. We as chiropractors educate the world on spinal decompression, and the dangers of surgery, the dangers of epidurals, the dangers of opioid medication that is our job is our duty. That is my mission.
As I’ve researched the dangers of counterfeit drugs and surgical hardware used in surgeries across the country, I became more alarmed. There is no way to tell how many people have been implanted with the counterfeit hardware because, according to attorney Justin Berger, “you’d have to open up their backs, take out their screws, and have someone look at them. ...that’s the only way you can tell if they’re counterfeit or not because they didn’t track the lot numbers properly.” Some estimate that the number of patients implanted with the knock-off hardware could be in the hundreds - if not thousands.
There has been a federal criminal investigation into the scam, called “Operation Spinal Cap,” and the Department of Justice has said the fraudulent claims related to this scheme span a 15-year period and cumulatively total more than $950 million. The scheme involved $40 million in illegal kickbacks paid to doctors and other medical professionals in exchange for referring thousands of patients for surgeries at California hospitals. Now, remember this is only one state at the cost of almost 100 million. WOW.
One of the architects of the scheme, Michael Drobot, the former owner of Pacific Hospital in Long Beach, is currently serving five years in federal prison and must forfeit $10 million. Paul Randall, another principal figure in the scam, cooperated with the federal government, spent less than a year in jail, and has now been released.
One of the most shocking convictions was California State Senator Ron Calderon. Calderon was convicted of accepting bribes in exchange for influencing California lawmakers to keep that lucrative loophole — the one that allowed for the inflated hardware reimbursements — open. He was sentenced to 42 months in prison and served less than 2 years.
A number of hospitals across the country, including Baltimore Washington Medical Center, have been sued by health insurers alleging the hospitals used fake parts and overbilled for them. The suit was also named one of the hospital’s spinal surgeons, Dr. Randy Davis. Local law firms are also investigating and reaching out to patients.
Real FDA-approved parts are made of titanium, rather than the stainless steel used in the first generation of hardware in the 1980s, and are not likely to fail, said Dr. Paul Asdourian, regional director of the spine program at MedStar North. If the screws and rods break or dislodge during the six weeks to six months it can take bones to fuse, the bones may not heal properly. That could lead to pain and more surgery, he said.
What scares the heck out of me, he further acknowledged, telling a fake screw from a real one could be tough. It depends on how good the fake is, Dr. Asdourian said. “If it’s done by a good machine shop, it may be difficult to tell.”
The World Health Organization, which formed a task force to stem the flow of counterfeit drugs and devices in 2006, said the scope of the problem is tough to gauge, though, in 2010, it estimated about 8 percent of all devices on the market were fake.
In 2012, U.S. Customs & Border Protection reported that 9 percent of all its seizures, or 2,350 packages, were counterfeit drugs and medical devices. They were worth $83 million, and more than half came from China. Do I have your attention yet?
The FDA recently reported that about 40 percent of finished drugs and more than half of medical devices in the United States come from overseas. The agency has stepped up inspections of foreign facilities. In June, the agency took action against 1,050 websites to stop selling illegal, unapproved, and potentially dangerous medicines and devices.
Now is our Time
Now is our time, now is the best time for Chiropractic; with Failed Back Surgery Syndrome, counterfeit drugs, counterfeit surgical parts are used, we need to stand up, be noticed, and educate our patients. The fact is, nothing is more pure than chiropractic care.
Yes, there are many differences in the many types of Decompression machines. Like a car, choose one that fits your style of practice. Know where they’re made. What I look for first and foremost is medical research behind the machine. Are all cars the same? Now again, as I will be challenged, I ask you, the reader, to make a choice. Does the machine have a fixed tower? How is this software-driven? Are they using a logarithmic, sinusoidal, or IDD therapy index? Are Microsoft and Apple the same? Are all computers the same? In a car or computer, you pay for features, like memory, Ram, software, comfort, looks, GPS. In decompression, some machines offer a better result. Why do I say this? The answers come from research.
I read an article last week saying all tables over $25,000 are not real. I challenge the author to show me one medical research study with that under $25,000 table. Simple statement, difficult challenge. Research is what drives reimbursement. Research is how you will get M.D. referrals and become a great witness for P.I. cases.
Decompression works, yet insurance companies still want us to use S9090, an unspecified code. They still say decompression is investigational. Is it because we, as a profession, try to sell tables versus rely on research?
How do you deny the McClure study? Dr. Dennis McClure, author of the McClure study, a neurosurgeon, tested over 500 surgical candidates and with spinal decompression, the success rate was 86 to 92% Yes, even a year post-treatment. As a professor, I tell my students to find out which machines these studies were done on, which would help me make my decision.
Decompression is real; we need to fight to keep this technology at the forefront of healing. So we know the costs are staggering, but where do we go from here. We are at war with back pain, an epidemic that is sweeping the nation and harbors more visits than McDonald's.
Often in lectures, I discuss dentistry simply to demonstrate the growth of industry changed by time and technology. “Tooth Pullers” became dentists as extraction was not the only way to approach the cause of the pathology. Patients no longer need to have their teeth pulled or their back operated on in most instances. Where did this all begin, to learn, we must go back to the beginning and allow the educated reader to make his own conclusions?
There have been numerous studies done on spinal decompression. To me, a table is as good as its research. As I teach decompression, I teach and understand the research. One of the first and largest available studies on the efficacy of non-surgical disc decompression was the data compiled by Gose, Naguszewski & Naguszewski, published in Volume 20 of the journal Neurological Research.
Dr. Norman Shealy, MD, Ph.D., and Vera Borgmeyer, RN, MA, whom many consider one of the icons of decompression reported the following, SUMMARY -American Journal of Pain Management Vol. 7 No. 2 April 1997.
Ramos G and Martin W, “Effects of Vertebral Axial Decompression on Intradiscal Pressure.” Journal of Neurosurgery, 1994.
Shealy C Norman and Leroy P, “New Concepts in Back Pain Management: Decompression, Reduction, and Stabilization.” Pain Management: A Practical Guide for Clinicians, Vol. 1, 1998.
Tilaro F and Miskovich D, “The Effects of Vertebral Axial Decompression on Sensory Nerve Dysfunction.” Canadian Journal of Clinical Medicine, January 1999.
Now there is the debate of traction versus decompression in an article by Dr. Alan Presswood, and he stated, “Traction is designed to try to take the pressure off the nerves, period. Spinal decompression is designed to relieve pressure and heal the disc so the patient can perform a normal movement in the area once again without fear of the problem returning.”
Do your homework, make an educated decision.
Dr. Eric S. Kaplan, is President of DISC Centers of America, the largest group of Chiropractic clinics in the U.S.A., utilizing Non-Surgical Spinal Decompression. He has worked with two Presidents of the United States and two U.S. Surgeon Generals. He is CEO of Concierge Coaches, www.conciergecoaches.com, the #1 Chiropractic firm in Spinal Decompression and Neuropathy training nationwide.
