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Many surgical centers are offering discounted or waived film review fees for patients presenting with a GPN online profle.  

• $150  -  Basic online profile fee (includes up to 25 images.)
  • Add $25 for more than 25 images.
  • Add $50 for more than 40 images.
  • Add $75 for more than 60 images.
  • Add $100 for more than 80 images.
    
• $100 - for each surgeon GPN will present the profile to.
  • Note: that this fee is essentially prepaying 2 hours of Mr. Mintzer's consulting.
    
• $20  -  Your patient profile and films on a CD ROM.  
  
• $10  -  additional copies of online profile CD. 
  
• $25  - Add films (up to 10 sheets) to an existing profile. 
  • $40 - 11 to 20 sheets
  • $50 - 21 to 30 sheets
    
• Fees must be submitted with films.

To request a GPN patient profile, contact us.

Patient Advocacy

If you would like help communicating with the doctors, GPN will function as your patient advocate.  Mark frequently attends doctor appointments with patients and observes diagnostic and other procedures (discography, injections, rhizotomy, etx...) We'll help you 'decode' reports and messages from your doctors.  If you'd like us to help write emails and letters to your doctors, insurance companies, etc., we'll do whatever we can to help you to reach the most appropriate treatment.  Please read Melanie's, Anne's and other patient stories for example's of our services..

Patient advocacy services are billed at $70/hour.

Patient Education and Consulting

With the network of spine patients that Mr. Mintzer is involved with, he can draw on the experiences of literally hundreds of patients, worldwide.  In addition to having lived through years of disability, 3 spine surgeries (including multi-level ADR in Germany), Mr. Mintzer continues to study spine.  He has attended or participated in the following medical conferences and traing sessions:

• American Academy of Minimally Invasive Spine Medicine and Surgery
  2002, Phoenix, AZ
   
• Spine Arthroplasty Society - SAS3
  2003, Phoenix, AZ
   
• ProDisc Surgical Training
  2003 (as an observer)
   
• American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons
  2004, San Francisco, CA
   
• Spine Arthroplasty Society - SAS4
  2004, Vienna, Austria
   
• Posteriorlateral Endoscopic Spine Surgery Preceptorship
  2004, Phoenix, AZ
   
• North American Spine Society - 19th Annual Meeting
  2004, Chicago, IL
   
• ProDisc-C Surgical Training
  2005 (as an observer)
   
• Spine Arthroplasty Society - SAS5
  2005, New York, NY
   
• International Intradiscal Therapy Society
  2005, San Diego, CA
   
• International Conference on Ethical Issues in Biomedical Engineering
  Speaker, Panelist
  2005, Rochester, NY
   
• North American Spine Society - 20th Annual Meeting
  2005, Philadelphia, PA

• Spine Arthroplasty Society - SAS6
  2006, Montreal, Canada
   
• North Americn Spine Society - 21st Annual Meeting
  2006, Seattle, WA
   
• International Conference on Ethical Issues in Biomedical Engineering
  Speaker, Panelist
  2007, Brooklyn, NY
   
• Spine Arthroplasty Society - SAS7
  2007, Berlin, Germany
   
• 9th US National Congress for Computational Mechanics
  Speaker
  2007, San Francisco, CA
   
• North American Spine Society - 22nd Annual Meeting
    2007, Austin, TX
   
• DSS Surgical Training
  2008 (as an observer)
   
• Spine Arthroplasty Society - SAS8
  2008, Miami, FL
   
• North American Spine Society - 23rd Annual Meeting
  2008, Toronto, Canada
   
  

Mr. Mintzer has observed well over 170 spine procedures at more than 2 dozen centers in Europe in the US. 

Surgeries observed include:

• Lumbar Artificial Disc Replacement, SB Charite' III, including:
• Hybrid procedures with anterior / posterior fusion,
• Lumbar Artificial Disc Replacement, ProDisc, including:
  • 1, 2 and 3-level procedures.
  • Rare L1-2 procedures
  • Split 2-level procedures and unique split 3-level procedure with ProDisc at L1-2, L3-4, L5-S1
  • Hybrid procedures including multiple technologies w/ADR.
    See Ken's Story for 4-level reconstruction.  
• Lumbar Artificial Disc Replacement, Mobidisc
• Lumbar Artificial Disc Replacement, Activ-L
• Keeled version and non-keeled version
• Lumbar Artificial Disc Replacement, Kineflex
• Cervical Artificial Disc Replacement, ProDisc-C
  • Many 2 and 3 level procedures
  • 4-level cervical ADR
  • 6-level cervical: fusion C1-4 and ProDisc-C C4-7
    see Brady Leighton's story
• Cervical ADR, Cervitech PCM
• Cervical ADR, Mobi-C
• ADR revisions
  • Explant subsided prosthesis.  Implant larger size (L3-4)
  • Insert Charite' at L5-S1 after L
  • Revise L4-S1 Charite' to L4-S1
  • Implantation of posterior dynamic stabilization system (DSS) behind tilted Charite'
• Revision of fusion to ADR
  • Remove fusion hardware REVISED FUSED SEGMENT to ProDisc-C
• Cervical revision surgeries (many) removing fusion hardware and adding ProDisc-C above, below and multi-levels above and below resulting in up to 4-level constructs
• Cervical Discectomy (ACD, microscopic)
• Cervical Endoscopic Discectomy
• Selective Endoscopic Discectomy (SED) with Thermal Annuloplasty (lumbar)
• Lumbar Endoscopic Discectomy with IDET
• Lumbar Microscopic Dorsal Decompression
• Posterior stabilization (lumbar) with Spine Motion Coflex (formerly called Fixano-U) and dorsal decompression
• Posterior stabilization (lumbar) with Paradigm Spine's DSS system.
• Lumbar Fusion hardware removal L3-S1 (H-cage)
• Fusion (lumbar and cervical) with various types of cages, plates, cadaver bone, etc. Also with:
  • Bone morphogenic protein (BMP)
  • Donor bone impregnated with Stem Cells (Trinity)
• Axial Lumbar Interbody Fusion system (AXIALIF from Trans1)
  360 Global fusion with facet screw fixation in 60 minutes, skin to skin
• Posterior decompression with ligamentoplasty
• Video Assisted Thoracic Surgery (VATS) - Thoracic Fusion
• Spinal reconstuction revising terrible configuration of fusion belowa T1-L5 construct accomplished in 6 prior surgeries. Wedge osteotomy with reconstruction of 3-lumbar levels. 10 hours!
• Scoliosis reconstruction, 60 degree curve reduced with fusion Th5-Th12

"I've developed very strong relationships with some of the top spine surgeons in the world.  If I can't answer your question, I can usually get the answer within a few days."

Patient consulting services are billed at $70/hour