Outpatient Spine Surgery

Dr. Lali Sekhon, MD

More and more surgery is being performed as an outpatient.

Outpatient surgery has the following benefits:

1. Recovery may be quicker as operations are typically performed to minimize pain
2. Infection rates may be lower as surgery is not done in a major hospital but rather a surgery center
3. The staff get experienced in managing particular kinds of operations
4. It may work out cheaper

The types of operations performed as an outpatient include:

1. Anterior cervical fusion surgery
2. Artificial cervical disc surgery
3. Posterior cervical foraminotomies
4. Lumbar microdiscetomies and laminectomies

Typically surgery is performed in the morning and patients go home the same day and go home 4-23 hours later. Attention is a little more focused than in a major hospital with lower complications. The actual operating room setup and equipment is the same as a big hospital but the staff/patient ratios are better. Patients with good health are generally only selected for this kind of surgery.