Now, vertebroplasty advocates look to be losing on a very significant front. A growing number of third-party payors - including at least one Medicare contractor - are reconsidering their coverage of procedures for vertebral compression fractures.

Just six months removed from Cardinal Health, CareFusion is making headlines with new products, anti-trust lawsuits and signficant acquisitions. The three individual events reflect the aggressive attitude CareFusion executives intend to carry now that they’re free from Cardinal Health.

Given how many start-up companies and their investors have rushed into spine over the past decade or so, one might assume that getting spine surgeons to adopt new technology is relatively easy. - But less than five years after the launch of the first artificial disc was supposed to usher in the era of motion preservation, surgeons are still arguing for the benefits of fusion over disc replacement--underscoring the tension between new devices and traditional therapy options. But one start-up, Vertos Medical Inc., has found a creative way around the adoption issue. Promoting a novel approach to spinal stenosis, Vertos' solution is to focus on the patient, rather than the surgeon, treating stenosis earlier in the continuum of care by reaching out to a new clinical specialty, interventional pain physicians.