Company: OFIX
Filing Date: 2025-02-25
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-026066
Chunk: 119

Company: Orthofix Medical Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-25
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 119
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 independent sales representatives to customers or to our independent distributors and purchased by hospitals, healthcare providers, and patients. These products may be reimbursed by third-party payors, such as government programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and Tricare, or private insurance plans, managed care organizations, and healthcare networks. Major third-party payors for medical services in the U.S. and internationally continue to work to contain health care costs, are increasingly challenging the policies and the prices charged for medical products and services, and have or may implement initiatives to limit the growth of healthcare costs, including price regulation, competitive pricing, coverage and payment policies, comparative effectiveness of therapies, technology assessments, and managed-care arrangements. Any medical policy developments that eliminate, reduce, or materially modify coverage of our reimbursement rates for our products could have an impact on our ability to sell our products. In addition, third-party payors continually review and revise their coverage and reimbursement policies for procedures involving the use of our products and can, without notice, eliminate or reduce coverage or reimbursement if they determine that a device or product provided to a patient or used in a procedure does not meet applicable payment criteria or if the policyholder’s healthcare insurance benefits are limited. 

For example, in the past, a major national third-party insurer in the U.S. reduced coverage (from all or most cases to limited indications) for biomechanical devices (e.g., spine cages) used in cervical fusion procedures, stating that the devices had not been shown to be more effective than bone graft. In addition, certain insurers have limited coverage for vertebral fusions in the lumbar spine and other insurers may adopt similar coverage decisions in the future. Limits put on reimbursement could make it more difficult to buy our products and substantially reduce, or possibly eliminate, patient access to our products. In addition, should governmental authorities continue to enact legislation or adopt regulations that affect third-party coverage and reimbursement, access to our products and coverage by private or public insurers may be reduced with a consequential material adverse effect on our sales and profitability. For example, in 2024 CMS considered establishing a pre-authorization requirement for bone growth therapy products and considered mandatory Healthcare Common Product Coding System ("HCPCS") code verifications for this class of durable medical equipment.

CMS, in its ongoing implementation of the Medicare program, periodically reviews medical study literature to determine how the literature addresses certain procedures and therapies in the Medicare population. The impact that this information could have on Medicare coverage policy for our products is currently unknown, and we cannot provide assurances that the resulting actions will