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forward slash beckerspodcast.

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This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Healthcare

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Podcast, and we are recording live at the

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twenty second annual Spine Orthopedic and Pain Management

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Conference. I'm currently joined by Sean Gibson, who

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is the CEO at Remedy Surgery Centers. Thanks

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for being here. We'd love to start off

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by having you share a little bit more

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about yourself, your role, and your organization.

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Thank you. Thank you for for having me

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here.

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I've been in, medicine now for about thirty

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seven years.

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The ASC market itself, it's been about thirty

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two of those thirty seven years.

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I think the unique side of what,

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I'd have to offer out there now is

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I've been on the corporate side,

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I've been on the publicly traded side, and

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I'm on the private side now. So

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it's given me a kind of a look

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from the perspective of what

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AACs, how those threats are for them.

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It gives me the other side from the

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private side looking back at the hospital.

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How can I

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friendly cohabitate an area and share patients,

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without

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letting them into my

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wallet per se, and keeping our investors

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happy as well? So

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I've been in medicine all my life.

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I've grown some of the businesses just on

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my own as as a business owner,

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and then just the the partnerships

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and the publicly traded side of the world.

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Wonderful. Well, thank you for being here. And

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let's start our conversation with what trends or

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shifts you're currently seeing right now in the

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industry that you think are most important for

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industry leaders to pay attention to.

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I I'm gonna state the obvious. One of

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them is the the payer market. Right? So

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our payer market

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is changing at lightning speed, and it's it's

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amazing

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really to kinda sit back and watch. There's

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there's days where I'm

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planning for, you know, negotiations for up and

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coming commercial

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markets. But on the other side, I'm talking

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to large companies, and those large companies,

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quite honestly, they're fed up. They're tired,

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of the double digit.

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One

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example that I had from just last week,

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this large company, they have 1,100 employees, and

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they're facing a 29%

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increase from their their payer.

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So they're not gonna do it. They're gonna

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they're gonna do their own. And so

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we've created our own consortium,

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and

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to be quite honest, it

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it takes the middleman out. So we are

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seeing patients quicker.

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We get paid quicker.

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We don't have to do authorizations.

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It it's it's really a

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a savvy market to get into, but you,

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you know, you need to get in now.

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And oddly enough, as soon as we got

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into the first one, I was approached by

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three more.

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So that payer market, yes, we'll still contend

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on the outside with, you know, the commercial

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market and the federal payers.

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But some of the new stuff, you know,

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private pay versus,

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a bundled type scenario. You just need to

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make sure that you're you're building

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that

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repertoire of of payers out, and,

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you can you can plan off of that

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a lot easier. So

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Absolutely.

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In staffing and workforce challenges, those continue to

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be a concern across health care. So how

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is your organization navigating these pressures, and what

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strategies have you seen work well?

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In that scenario,

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you really have to look at a a

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couple different things. And to be quite honest,

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you have to step off your soapbox that

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you're used to being on as a hospital

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administrator.

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It was easy. We had a department, we

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just went there,

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and we we picked up our folks. But

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I can't I can't do that, you know,

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in in an ASC. I mean, we can,

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but it would the reach is

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nothing compared to what we're

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we've had in the past. So

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I've actually done some different things. I've gone

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to the local colleges that, have nursing schools

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or whatever,

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scrub

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programs,

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and we have

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partnered with them in the sense that we're

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allowing their students to come do

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walk throughs or or they can do, you

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know, some skills training in a real live

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OR and kinda watch some stuff happen there.

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In return for doing that, we get

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to fish their their pool first. So I

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can pick up the top three graduates and

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take them in.

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It's hard. I mean, there's a there's a

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negative to that because those folks have not

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been in a real life

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environment, but you can mold them. And if

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you

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have senior enough folks, you can mold them

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to be that person that your surgeons

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absolutely want to be on the case.

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And as outpatient care continues to grow, how

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do you see the role of orthopedics and

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ASCs evolving within the broader healthcare ecosystem? So

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that's an easy one.

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Looking around at the

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the conference

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now,

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it's full of orthopedic folks. It is full

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of spine folks. I mean,

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orthopedics,

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things are, you know, they're

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it's getting easier to do these higher

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complex,

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higher acuity cases in an ASC. It's

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we've spent the time and pulled the data,

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and now people are seeing, you know, it

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it's not really as scary as what they

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initially painted it to be. So

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doing those big complex cases,

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it's just given us a

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a bigger market to to

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play in, and we're attracting those bigger surgeons

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that now

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aren't so against doing surgeries

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in our center versus the hospital.

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And then as we round out our conversation,

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many organizations are exploring new technologies,

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partnerships, or care models to improve efficiency and

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outcomes. So are there any innovations or initiatives

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you found particularly promising?

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Probably just like everybody else. I mean, that

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there every other word out of anybody's mouth

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here at this conference is AI, and,

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we've just gotta face the facts. It's here.

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So

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I'm a little bit of an older guy,

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but,

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I think the biggest thing for me

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going into this is I don't really understand

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what it is.

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I don't really understand how it works,

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and I don't know how much it costs.

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So

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it's an exact reason to come to conferences

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like this. So

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I've been in

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many, many AI

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talks here,

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have learned a ton,

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have made some connections, and,

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AI now is, you know, something you can

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look at. It's it's gonna be in every

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piece of an operations

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perspective,

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but most importantly on a payer side. When

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we're looking at our

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our data for billing,

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I can use AI to scrub through that

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stuff and just reduce

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many human errors. I it

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I'm starting to sound like, you know, some

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of the the robotic stuff, but, I mean,

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it it truly is. And it's not that

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I'm gonna get rid of my billing staff.

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Those folks are going to manage

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the AI within that,

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and

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allow us to grow.

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I don't have to have as many FTEs.

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Really, that AI

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bot

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is a an electronic FTE per se that

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that's working twenty four hours a day that

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when they come back in, my

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director comes back in. She can look back

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through the scrub data,

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make any corrections that we might need to

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do, and

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know that we're throwing you know, we're putting

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a clean claim in, and it's gonna be

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paid.

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Well, Sean, thank you for taking the time

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to be here today. Is there anything else

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you'd like to share that we didn't get

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to touch on?

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I think we've covered a, a lot.

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Honestly, I would say to anybody to use

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these conferences

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intelligently and and look

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it gives us a a peek into the

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future,

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and what that market is really doing before

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it really actually gets here. And you get

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to see some of the widgets and play

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with them, pick them up, and

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it's it's a conference. It's it's what these

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are here for. So

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spend the money, come out, and there's great

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people. It's a great networking opportunity. I've met

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many new folks here, and then participate.

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Wonderful. Well, thanks so much for joining us

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today on the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. Again, we

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are live at the twenty second annual Spine

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Orthopedic and Pain Management Conference.

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Thank you so much.