AmputeeReporting that keeps its shoes on
We follow the decisions, tools, stories, and systems that show up in real life after limb loss.
The O&P EDGE frames the clinical case for adjustable lower-limb socket designs. Here is the patient-facing translation: what it means, when to bring it up, and what to say.
A validated satisfaction measure for O&P device users now exists. Here's what it does, how it gets used, and why the questions being asked matter more than the score.
Bionic Prosthetics and Orthotics Group, based in Indiana, brought on Steven Senko — previously a brand ambassador at mobile device company Agoztech — as its new business development manager. The hire is one data point in a recognizable pattern: O&P practices building out the commercial side of their operations, and pulling that capacity from outside the clinical world.
A 2026 market outlook report projects the global limb prosthetics sector growing at a 7.5% compound annual growth rate. Market forecasts like this are built for investors and procurement teams, not patients — and what they measure is not the same as whether more people who need devices will get them.
Ottobock raised its organic core revenue growth forecast for 2026 to 6–8 percent, up from its prior 5–8 percent range. The number is corporate language. What is underneath it matters more.
A new Fortune Business Insights market outlook covers the robotic prosthetics industry through 2034. 'Robotic prosthetics' is a specific segment within the broader prosthetics market — and it's the tier that faces the most intensive prior authorization scrutiny, the sharpest K-level debates, and the widest gap between what technology can do and what coverage policy will authorize.
Bionic Skins hired Bri Perry, CPO, as prosthetist and clinical manager after about a year at ForMotion Clinic. In a field where 78 percent of practitioners report burnout and the supply of experienced clinicians is structurally limited, individual moves accumulate into access patterns.
A research team adapted the established Limb Injury Measurement Battery for Quality of Life to create a device-specific satisfaction measure for O&P users. Satisfaction and quality of life measure different things, and for device users the difference is more than academic.
Motorica announced it will serve as the exclusive India representative for TEHLIN's lower-limb prosthetic technologies. The arrangement is a commercial distribution deal — and the distance between cleared distribution and meaningful access expansion in a country with millions of unmet prosthetics needs is worth tracing.
The O&P EDGE polled its clinical readership on 3D printing barriers and influencers in professional education. The 39 percent who named cost as the top challenge are describing something different than the affordability headlines. The influencer question describes something else entirely.
Medicare has updated the HCPCS codes that require advance approval and a documented face-to-face visit before a prosthetic or orthotic device can be delivered. The process is not new. The list is longer.
Eqwal, a global healthcare and orthotics-and-prosthetics company, acquired Prestaco, a France-based medical equipment supplier founded in 2018 that serves healthcare facilities, medico-social organizations, and individuals. The deal is a small data point in a larger pattern worth naming.
Hike Medical, an AI and medical device company serving the orthotics, prosthetics, DME, and podiatry sectors, announced Chad Duncan, PhD, CRC, CPO, MSO, as its clinical director. Reading the credential string is more informative than the announcement.
The International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics is accepting abstract submissions and participation grant applications for its 21st World Congress, March 22–25, 2027. The grant program deserves attention: the barriers to global O&P conference participation are not evenly distributed, and the field's research agenda reflects who does and doesn't make it into the room.
A new clinical feature in The O&P EDGE explains why residual limb volume shifts throughout the day, and what the range of adjustable lower-limb socket approaches is designed to address. The biology is worth understanding before the next fitting conversation.
Researchers compared brace efficacy in adolescents with idiopathic scoliosis curves that apex above T7/T8. High thoracic curves pose a specific mechanical challenge that makes this comparison clinically meaningful — if you understand why the two braces work differently.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services updated its Required Face-to-Face, Written Order Prior to Delivery, and Required Prior Authorization lists to cover additional orthotics and prosthetics codes. Each list adds a distinct procedural step before Medicare will pay.
A popular-press item about electronic skin giving touch sensation to prosthetics is making the rounds. The sensor research is real. So is the distance between a lab demonstration and something a prosthetist can fit.
Researchers quantified burnout levels among orthotics and prosthetics practitioners and found approximately 78 percent of respondents were affected. In a specialized field where losing a single practitioner can reshape access across a region, the downstream consequences for patients are worth tracing.
Rochester Institute of Technology researchers announced work across three areas of prosthetics R&D: new materials, sensors, and bioprinting. What each category actually involves, and where each sits in the pipeline between a lab and a clinic.
Healthcare billing was supposed to be shifting from paying per service to paying per outcome. In orthotics and prosthetics, that shift has been slower than predicted — and understanding why matters for patients navigating a fee-for-service system that still governs most of their care.
Affordability headlines for 3D-printed prosthetics are real in some corners of the market and premature in others. Which one applies to you depends on what device you need, your functional level, and how your insurance bills it.
Adaptive sport gets covered as an aspirational endpoint. What it actually is—community, fitness, a testing environment for devices—is worth understanding, along with who has a realistic path in and who the current system leaves out.
Research from the Hanger Institute, published in PM&R, reports that adjustable-volume sockets improved comfort, quality of life, and satisfaction at a clinically meaningful level. The finding matters; so does reading it with care.
A Mount Prospect community rallied to raise more than $200,000 for a teen following an amputation. That's genuinely good. It also tells you exactly what insurance didn't cover — and who never gets a fundraiser that goes viral.
The Eastern Michigan University Foundation has increased the Dale Berry Orthotics and Prosthetics Endowed Scholarship by 250 percent. The number matters less than what it points toward: a workforce pipeline that shapes whether prosthetic care is available at all.
A Times of India feature highlights IIT Madras professors whose research spans clean water to prosthetics. The prosthetics thread in that recognition sits inside a long tradition of Indian academic work on low-cost, contextually appropriate devices — and a design problem that Western R&D largely didn't set out to solve.
Two personnel announcements in O&P trade press this week — a promotion at consulting firm O&P Insight and an anniversary at recruiting company Newell Group — are quiet signals about what O&P practices are investing in. The administrative load behind those decisions matters for understanding how access to prosthetic care actually functions.
The UN's industrial development agency selected IfeanHealth for Nigeria's 3D-printed prosthetics innovation programme. The selection is meaningful. So is the distance between a programme announcement and a fitted device on a person's body.
The National Association for the Advancement of Orthotics and Prosthetics held an informational luncheon August 5 on care transitions for Medicare beneficiaries after amputation. The meeting points directly at one of the most persistent gaps in how the system actually works.
The FDA is holding its final public meeting on the next medical-device user-fee agreement. The discussion is technical, but the resulting review timelines and accountability measures can affect how quickly new prosthetic systems reach the people who need them.
A new version of Medicare's Lower Limb Prostheses policy article became effective August 1. The change is a reason to confirm documentation, coding, and supplier requirements before a new device or replacement claim is submitted.
A six-month moratorium on new DMEPOS supplier enrollment is nearing its planned end. What it did to prosthetic-care access, who bore the friction cost, and what to ask your payer before assuming the problem resolves itself.
Since February 27, new prosthetics and orthotics suppliers have been locked out of Medicare enrollment under a CMS fraud-control measure. For patients, the consequence is not a billing freeze — it is a quieter limit on access, especially in areas that already have few providers.
A new CMS reference document maps prosthetics, orthotics, and equipment payment requirements side by side. Less exciting than a coverage change, more useful than you might think.
A clinician's 15-year reflection in The O&P EDGE traces how 3D printing and digital scanning changed prosthetic fabrication. The patient-side version of that story is more complicated.
A DMEPOS enrollment moratorium has been running since late February. It didn't stop existing providers from billing—but it did freeze the pool. Here's what that means as the planned expiration approaches.
ForMotion Clinic absorbed MCOP and Anderson Prosthetics this week, extending its footprint across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. O&P consolidation is not new—but the questions that matter for patients are specific and worth knowing before anything changes.
The High Court of Ghana settled a 13-year governance dispute over amputee football, ruling in favor of the National Sports Authority and National Paralympic Committee. What it means for players who lived through the waiting.
7News Australia reports a Melbourne research team has developed an AI diagnostic tool described as a world-first in identifying diabetics at risk of amputation. The announcement warrants attention. So do the questions it leaves open.
Medicare pays more for custom clinical work in O&P care. An O&P Edge analysis this week identifies the compliance risk when providers take the easier path—and what patients can ask at their next appointment.
O&P EDGE profiled Tre Adkins's experience with osseointegration. Here's the broader picture: how the procedure works, what the research says about outcomes and risks, and the questions worth bringing to a surgical team.
An O&P EDGE contributor who has worn upper-limb prostheses for more than five decades reviews the evolution of adjustable, self-suspending transradial socket designs—and what that long-term view contributes to a fitting conversation.
Researchers including Max Ortiz-Catalan studied outcomes from phantom motor imagery, a treatment that asks patients to mentally exercise a missing limb. What the findings mean—and what they leave open.
Researchers analyzed hands, wrists, and elbow devices across control types and structural approaches. The finding that similar constraints run across the category is more useful than it sounds.
The VA/DoD’s updated rehabilitation guideline includes patient-facing tools. That can make appointments easier to prepare for, even when care is not through VA.
A recent survey found varied success with adjustable-volume sockets. The headline is not a product verdict; it is a reminder to ask better fitting questions.
A new VA purchasing change aims to cut delivery time. Here’s who it affects, what it does not promise, and the questions worth taking to an appointment.
