This is Carly Beam with the Becker Spine
and Orthopedics podcast.
And today, I'm thrilled to be joined by
Daniel Goldberg,
senior vice president of sales and growth at
United Musculoskeletal
Partners.
Daniel, thank you so much for being here
today.
Thank you, Collie, for having me.
So before we dive into our questions, could
you just introduce yourself and tell us a
bit about your background?
Yeah. So I'm the, as you mentioned, the
senior vice president of, sales and growth at
United Musculoskeletal
Partners.
UMP has practices,
in Atlanta, Denver,
and Dallas.
My job is to,
grow new patient volume and improve access for
patients.
I've been in the orthopedic and spine practice
marketing space for about fifteen years
total. So that was, with another MSO prior
to UMP and then my own independent marketing
agency that represented about a thousand orthopedic and
spine surgeons across the country from about 2,000,
2,009
to 2,019.
Great. And I'd love to hear your top
three priorities,
head into the new year.
Yeah. I I think the the top priority
for us is reducing friction across the patient
journey. So a lot of times, care is
disjointed.
Patients will go
to one group or one set of providers
for for specific issues. They'll go to a
hospital based provider group for oncology or cardiology
or OB. They'll go to an independent primary
care provider
or independent orthopedic specialist for those needs.
But, you know, again, that creates friction. For
us, you know, we focus on convenience and
access.
You know, for musculoskeletal
patients, they need to be able to receive
care on their schedule, and they really don't
wanna wait days or weeks to see a
specialist.
You know, this is especially true with orthopedic
conditions because they often cause chronic pain that
interrupts activities of daily living, working, sleeping,
taking care of their children. You know, for
these reasons that patients wanna be seen as
quickly as possible so they can return
to their active lifestyles as quickly as possible.
Waiting two, three, four weeks to see a
specialist doesn't really provide them that opportunity.
So at UMP, you know, our focus is
on access,
but that's just more than just having multiple
locations in each market. It means, you know,
online,
online scheduling adoption,
call handling,
follow ups, everything that really goes into the
first patient call to their post op care.
So that's the number one priority.
The second priority for this year is really
focusing on embracing AI.
You know, patients are increasingly getting care recommendations
from AI answers, not just Google search results.
About 50% of consumers now use AI for
search, and AI generated
overviews now appear in about 60% of search
results.
So what that means is growth from an
orthopedic practice standpoint
needs to,
allow for AI
to
read and interpret your website and your content
and understand that it's trustworthy and structured so
that when a patient asks AI or sees
an AI search result for who should I
see for knee pain, that means your practice
is showing up in those AI generated search
results.
You know, what is now known as
AIEO,
which is search engine optimization
or SEO for AI,
helps prioritize those clinical expectations, local credibility,
and patient friendly content so that you appear
in those searches.
But that means
sort of,
shifting your strategy away from just traditional SEO
that was based on keywords
and now focusing more on intent.
So that's one way we're we're using,
AI.
Another is
to use AI to discover new audiences across
social media channels, streaming TV, and other platforms.
Now we know that not every patient
seeks care at the first onset of their
knee, back, or shoulder pain. Their research and
discovery journey may span the course of weeks
or even months.
We use AI tools and those signals to
allow us to build audiences
of patients that are likely to be in
need of, you know, MSK care. And then
we proactively get our message in front of
those patients so that when the patient does
decide to seek care a week or a
month from now, it's with one of our
practices because we've already built trust and authority
with that patient by touching them across multiple
touch points. So that's, again,
search,
social media,
print, linear, streaming TV, all the different touch
points that allow us to get in front
of that patient and and display our message
to them. That's what we're really focused on
leveraging AI to help us
do.
Fascinating strategy that you're outlining here. And I
had a follow-up question for you, Daniel. I
was wondering
how you see what's the biggest opportunity for
AI to really help with, friction points
in patient access?
Yeah. There are several agentic AI tools that
can handle things like scheduling or rescheduling when
a patient calls so that they're not they
don't have to wait on hold to speak
with someone in the contact center to reschedule
an appointment or get directions.
So there is an opportunity for AgenTic AI
to help with that. The key is how
much do you want the AI tool to
do? Do you want it to schedule new
patients, or do you want it to only
do reschedules?
Do you want it to do outbound referral
follow-up, or do you want it to triage
incoming referral faxes? It's really a AI can
do anything.
It's more about what you need it to
do, what you trust it to do, and
what you can teach it to do that
helps you operationally.
Got it.
And, you know, you're obviously working with practices
across different
markets, states. And I'm wondering how you're thinking
about growth in these areas and what strategies
look like when you're working across different markets.
Yeah. Good question. So, you know, UMP
being the MSO,
you know, our philosophy is a mix of
centralized strategy and local execution.
Now from the marketing side, UMP helps create
digital front doors, optimizes call centers,
implements AI tools and analytics so the practice
can focus more on seeing patients and not
necessarily building individual systems.
But each market shares, you know, commonalities
but also unique trends.
One of the examples that I'll give is,
you know, in the Dallas Fort Worth market
where UMP has several practices,
there are new developments and housing developments being
built all the time. Mhmm. The influx of
new residents into these areas is out pacing
the growth of health care infrastructure.
We know that the these residents will likely
need MSK care, and we know what drives
them to make decisions.
But we have to be accessible to these
patients and new residents. So strategically, our evaluating
our geographic access points helps us drive volume
in those markets.
There are other markets
that where, the the population is stagnant stagnant
or not growing, but health care services are
exploding. So we have to evaluate that as
well. So it's really looking at the things
that work
to help streamline access and availability,
but tailoring that to each market that we
represent.
Again, access is the primary growth lever for
our market. So faster time appointment consistently drives
volume and creates advantages
over larger,
institutions or health systems.
Focusing on that messaging locally
and emphasizing access and convenience has been something
that, for us, has been proven to drive
growth.
And, you know, what do you think are
some things that all,
musculoskeletal
physicians,
regardless of if they're,
with a group like UMP
or if they're hospital employed, what's something that
all physicians should be doing to improve their
own reach?
Yeah. So I'll I'll give a few examples.
The first is, you know, understand how market
dynamics influence patient acquisition. You know, primary care
physician referrals have historically been the lifeblood for
many, orthopedic practices.
But as the downward financial and reimbursement pressure
continue to make independent practices struggle,
many primary care groups align health systems or
payers.
These employed or aligned models often encourage PCPs
to refer to other employee providers.
If If you're an independent group,
not employed or aligned with the health system,
this means some of those referral sources that
you've historically relied on may dissipate over time
because they're they're encouraged to, refer to their
other employee providers.
I think it's about 70% of US physicians
are now employed by a hospital or an
insurance entity.
That has a dramatic impact on referral serage.
So it's important to understand
the market you're in and the consolidation in
the market you're in so that you can
create strategies for your field teams or physician
liaison teams to continue to drive growth both
from independent primary care groups
and the employed or aligned primary care groups.
In some instances, that means, again, highlighting access
and convenience and expertise.
But in others where that entity may be
involved in an alternative payment model model, a
clinically integrated network, or a value based care
model,
it means highlighting cost and outcomes data to
those groups. So understanding what your levers are
in in either the employed or independent,
groups is really important. The second thing I'd
say is understand your marketing ROI ROI. This
is something that I've I've talked about for
years.
You know, whether the marketing is done by
an internal team or an external
agency,
having clearly defined new patient targets and metrics
for success
in the beginning of the year, you know,
we're in January now, is really important.
Clicks, impressions, these are these are good, metrics,
but understanding their impact on new patient volume
is what's most important.
Most practices should know their annual patient value.
So and they need a clear acquisition of
the cost per acquisition for new patients across
multiple channels so that they can justify
to spend on digital or referral strategies.
If you know that you you what your
annual average,
new patient value is,
you can do a math problem of what
the cost per acquisition is and decide
if this is a channel we wanna continue
to invest dollars in or we wanna reallocate
dollars or manpower into things that are that
are driving new volume.
This will help separate marketing expense from true
new revenue and create a clear picture of
ROI.
Yeah. So it sounds like really now is
the best time for physicians to kinda figure
out what their goals should be this year
and how to really attack those.
Yeah. I mean, most practices have a a
growth budget or a growth, growth target. You
know, it comes down to capacity. You know,
some practices can stand to grow
10% of new patients.
Some can only stand and grow 3% because
they're not bringing on new providers. They have
providers departing.
Understanding capacity and then setting your targets and
benchmarks based on capacity
is what they should be focusing on, you
know, in the beginning of the year.
Absolutely.
And then last question for you, Daniel. I
know you mentioned before that you spent more
than fifteen years in this orthopedic and spine
marketing space. And I'm wondering, Neil, are there
any lessons from, you know, past experiences
that you're still
working with
now? Yeah. I I think, you know, in
the fifteen years that I've been working with
orthopedic and spine practices,
you know, my job was always to drive,
access and drive new patient volume.
And as much as, you know, of all
the strategies I've implemented and changes I've made,
there's nothing more important than word-of-mouth, and that's
something you can't pay for. The example I
always give is
if you ask a friend or a neighbor,
you know, where you should get your taxes
done, they say, oh, you gotta see my
girl. I have the best tax girl. Or
if, you know, your car is making a
funny noise, they'll say, I have the best
engine guy. You gotta go see my guy
at at at the dealership.
The same is true when someone says my
knee hurts or my back hurts. Right? Someone
will say to them, you gotta go see
my orthopedic guy. You gotta see my spine
guy. He's the best.
That referral
has more value than anything we can do
digitally or anything else because that comes from
a trusted source, a friend, a neighbor, a
family member.
The goal is should be to create patient
advocates, but creating patient advocates starts with a
patient experience.
So from their first phone call to their
first appointment
to their follow-up care to their post op
care, that's what creates a seamless patient experience.
That is what will create patient evangelists for
you so that those patients go out in
the community and tell others
what an amazing experience they had. There's no
dollar amount that you can spend to make
that happen, but that's one of the most
important things
to continue to have a thriving practice.
Exactly. Sounds like an absolutely priceless
aspect of the of the job.
Absolutely. Yeah. It's one of the things that
we you can't pay to do and you
can't pay to replicate. It happens organically,
but you can influence it by ensuring
the patient has a positive experience across the
board.
Definitely.
Well, Daniel, thank you again for joining us
in the podcast today. I look forward to
connecting again in the future. Thank you so
much. Appreciate the opportunity.