2026’s spine disruptors: 5 predictions
By Admin | December 07, 2025
As spine surgeons reflect on the past year and what’s ahead, AI and payer woes are among the key disruptors physicians anticipate in 2026.
Several spine surgeons joined “Becker’s Spine and Orthopedics Podcast” to share their insights.
Note: These excerpts were lightly edited. Some responses are from upcoming episodes.
Question: What will be a key disruptor to spine surgery in 2026?
Erich Anderer, MD. NYU Langone Health (New York City): The obvious answer in any surgical field is going to be tech and advanced robotics and this kind of thing. Thinking outside the box, there’s just so much stuff going on with AI and predictive analytics. I think that we’re actually going to probably end up basing some treatment on algorithms that were written via an AI model. A lot of that’s actually being done in the neurosurgery world and at NYU where we can use de-identified data. If somebody comes in with this complaint at this time of day, with this, we can almost predict what kind of problem they’re going to have, where they’re going to get discharged to all these things, which I think is going to be sort of interesting, because clearly you’re going to have to have some sort of human oversight into how this is done, but harnessing the power of AI and tech in general, I think for these types of things is really going to change the way that we that we diagnose and treat disease.
Scott Blumenthal, MD. Texas Back Institute (Plano): I think it will be more restrictions on advanced technology. We got these great technologies that come out, and if they don’t fit the protocols they’re going to restrict patients’ access to it much like pharmaceuticals that come up with these great new drugs and it takes years to get on the formulas of these insurance companies …. At the Center for Disc Replacement at the Texas Back Institute, we’ve stayed within the insurance networks, whereas a lot of the disc replacement surgeons opt for an out-of-network strategy so they don’t have to deal with headwinds that we’ve been having to deal with. But for the most part most patients can’t really afford to do out-of-network cash pay models for disc replacements.
James Mooney, MD. Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond): Within the next year, I think AI is going to continue improving outcomes. It’s yet to be seen the full extent of where ultra-minimally invasive surgery is going to head. I’m actively following that as well, but...(More)
For more info please read, 2026’s spine disruptors: 5 predictions, by Becker's Spine Review
