There are several steps spine surgeons must take when migrating their cases from the inpatient setting to an outpatient surgery center. Beyond the appropriate training, surgeons must consider how their practice will change as a result of the transition and seriously think about the commitment.

Robert S. Bray, Jr., MD, neurosurgeon and CEO of DISC Sports & Spine Center in Marina del Rey, Calif., believes that outpatient surgery centers and spine specialty hospitals are the future of elective spine surgery. He moved out of his role as head of the Cedars-Sinai Spine Center in Los Angeles to open his own practice, and has since developed two surgery centers where surgeons perform complex minimally invasive orthopedic and spine cases.

Here are 5 keys to success with spine surgery in an outpatient surgery center.

Thomas Schuler, MD, spine surgeon and president and CEO of Virginia Spine Institute, discusses the outlook for outpatient spine surgery in the next few years.

Four spine surgeons discuss the topics weighing most heavily on them and their practices heading into 2012.

Here are 12 new ambulatory surgery centers with spine services or existing centers with new spine services.

Walter Eckman, MD, founder of Aurora Spine Center in Tupelu, Miss., has been performing a minimally invasive transformaminal lumbar interbody fusion technique in a hospital setting while enabling patient to go home the same day for more than 10 years. He has limited his practice to just minimally invasive spine surgery and maintained profitability, despite his small-town location. Here, Dr. Eckman discusses his technique and the transition of spine surgery into the outpatient setting.

Here are five spine surgeons performing cases in ambulatory surgery centers and why they urge other surgeons to transition into the outpatient setting.