Fusion pays surgeons more. You deserve to know that.

This is uncomfortable to write, and it is true.

A cervical fusion reimburses a surgeon roughly thirty to forty percent more than a disc replacement at the same level. It also takes less time to learn and less time to do.

None of that makes the surgeons who recommend it dishonest. Most of them were trained on fusion, they do it well, and they believe in it. Incentives do not need to be conscious to work.

But you are the one who lives in the neck afterwards. You are entitled to know that the default recommendation in this field has a financial current running underneath it, and to ask whether yours is the neck that actually needs it.