When elective procedures were eliminated in much of the country in March and April 2020, most orthopedic procedures were included. With reopening in May and June, procedure volumes began to bounce back. However, recent increases in COVID-19 cases, especially in the southern U.S., is evaporating confidence in the return to normalization.
Orthopedic Procedures Bounce Back in Q2, Surgeons Wary
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Canaccord Genuity has been surveying orthopedic surgeons monthly, and tracking the trends. Office visits were up in June, with 94% of respondents reporting that they were seeing existing or new patients, up from a low of 26% in March. Hand-in-hand, elective procedures were being conducted by 70% of respondents in June, up from a low of 0% in March.
Only 8% of respondents expect Q3-2020 to normalize to 2019 procedure counts, when 32% said the same in April. While respondents believe that year-over-year drops will shrink as the year progresses (40%, 35%, and 31% drops in July, August, and September, respectively) these numbers are less optimistic that those reported in the May survey.
Additionally, interest in trying new technologies or procedures has decreased as well from 42% and 22% of respondents in April, to only 18% and 4% in June. However, the percentage of respondents interested in participating in clinical trials doubled between April and June to 44%.
Most orthopedic surgeons (82%) expect increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases to impact their practice through the end of 2020, and some expect November and December to be a repeat of March and April.
Canaccord Genuity Analyst Kyle Rose commented saying, “While we saw a sharp bounce-back in volumes to end the Q2, this survey raises more questions around the sustainability of that rebound continuing month-over-month in the second half of the year.” Based on the survey results, the outlook for the rest of 2020 is bleak for orthopedic surgeons and device manufacturers.
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This is a fascinating development. In my practice we've seen similar outcomes with the revised protocol. The key differentiator seems to be patient selection criteria. Has anyone else noticed the correlation with BMI thresholds?
Great point. I'd push back slightly on the conclusion, the sample size in the cited study is too small to draw population-level inferences. That said, the directional signal is compelling and worth a larger RCT.
We implemented a similar approach last year. Early results are promising but we're still gathering 12-month follow-up data. Happy to share our protocol if anyone is interested.
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