A Neurosurgeon’s Take on the Evolving Healthcare Landscape
By Admin | October 05, 2016
Becker’s Spine Review interviewed Dr. Thomas Scully, a neurosurgeon with Northwest NeuroSpecialists in Tucson, AZ, about the evolution of surgery and how value-based care will impact patients in the future.
Here are some key takeaways from his interview.
On the evolution of neurosurgery:
“Neurosurgery has undergone many significant changes in the past 10 years. I started private practice in 1994. In many ways, it is a completely different landscape. First, imaging, especially MRI proliferation, has allowed us to see far more pathology than we may have thought existed.”
On value-based care and neurosurgery:
“A potential downfall for patients is rationing. Smokers, diabetics and obese patients may not get operations because their results are potentially less good than those patients without such diagnoses.”
On new government mandates:
“Neurosurgery is hard enough clinically, technically and it is ever changing. Adding more bureaucracy and rules to discern when I could better spend my time learning new techniques is counterproductive.”
For more, read “‘Surgery is like comfort food for my soul’—Dr. Thomas Scully on being a neurosurgeon in an evolving landscape” from Becker’s Spine Review.
