Introduction: The Physician Payments Sunshine Act was placed into law in 2010 in an effort to create transparency between physicians and industry. Along with many other specialties, orthopaedic surgeons have long worked intimately with medical industry companies. This study aimed to evaluate trends in industry payments to general orthopaedic surgeons from 2014 to 2019. Methods: A retrospective review of the Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services' Open Payments Database was done to identify all industry payments to all general orthopaedic surgeons (ie, not subspecialty affiliated) from 2014 to 2019. The researchers analyzed total payments and subtype payments for yearly trends, and a regional analysis was done. The primary outcome was the overall trend in total median payments, which was assessed through the Jonckheere-Terpstra test. Descriptive statistics include medians with interquartile ranges. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Between 2014 and 2019, a total of 1,330,543 payments totaling $1.79 billion dollars was paid to 108,041 general orthopaedic surgeons. During this time, the number of surgeons receiving payments increased with a significant uptrend in median payments per surgeon (P < 0.001; Table 1). The top 25% percentile of general orthopaedic surgeons received >95% of payments, whereas the bottom 25% received <0.1%. The general payment types all saw significant increases (P < 0.001) between 2014 and 2019, with the exception of “Ownership or Investment Interests” (P = 0.657) and “Royalty or License” (P = 0.517). Significant regional uptrends in median industry payments were also seen in the Midwest, Northeast, South, and West (P < 0.001). Four of the top five orthopaedic industry companies made payment increases between 2014 and 2019. Conclusion: Industry payments to general orthopaedic surgeons between 2014 and 2019 have increased with a considerable disparity in payments among the top-paid orthopaedic surgeons.

Acute traumatic spondyloptosis (ATS) is a rare condition in the orthopedic literature, with few cases reported. We present a case of ATS in a 35-year-old Hispanic male with multilevel injury, without neurological deficits at the time of injury. The patient was treated in a two-stage method consisting of combined anterior and posterior spinal decompression and fusion. At the six-month follow-up, the patient had no motor/sensory deficits, he remained stable during the one-year period. Conclusion: ATS is rarely seen in patients without neurological deficits on presentation. Although surgical intervention presents significant risks of iatrogenic neurologic compromise, surgical fixation is warranted.