The number of spinal implants approved for use in Australia and Internationally is growing. In the Australian context the growth of available implants and increasingly widespread use has been presented as a “crisis” and unsustainable by some payers, especially for-profit insurers, and advocacy groups for those payers.
In this presentation I will review regulatory data on spinal prostheses usage and benefits payed and argue that, as far as spinal implants are concerned, this crisis is fictional and the result of misrepresentations of medium-term trends.
I found that while the total number of spinal prostheses increased 29% (more than double the rate of population growth) between the financial year ending June 2014 and the financial year ending June 2019, the total benefits payed for spinal prostheses declined 3% once adjusted for inflation and growth in the Australian Population.
I will contrast the growth in spinal prosthesis costs with the growth in other costs in healthcare provision, and health expenditure generally.
I will conclude by making recommendations about minimum standards for the presentation of data relating to healthcare expenditure, specifically seasonal adjustment of reporting periods less than 12 months, consistency of comparisons, and distinguishing between volume moderated and non-volume moderated metrics.