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dot com forward slash

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pod. Best. This is Chanel Bun with the

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Becker Healthcare care podcast and I'm recording live

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at the Becker Healthcare care 20 first Annual

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Spine orthopedic and pain management Driven As.

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Plus the future of Spine Conference. And right

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now, I'm sitting down with doctor Scott Blu,

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the founder for Ci disc replacement,

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And a spine surgeon at the Texas Back

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Institute, Doctor. Blu. Thank you so much for

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joining me today. Thank you. It's it's good

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to be back and sorry about that mouthful

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of introduction.

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Well, to get us started, could you please

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tell us a little bit about your background

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and your organizations?

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Yeah. So

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I've been doing this for many, many years.

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We started the center for disc replacement.

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Oh, gosh It's it's been over 10 years.

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Now based upon the fact that a subset

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of Tb,

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the center for disc replacement really focused on

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this particular unique technology.

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That started out as fairly niche technology.

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At least in the cervical spine now. It

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it's definitely more well accepted.

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Applicable

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to outpatient or ambulatory surgery.

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And

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you know, we we... We've seen it mature

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over the years and since we started with

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the original Fda trials almost 25 years ago.

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Perfect. And you kind of already touched on

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it a little bit, but what makes the

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center for placement

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unique.

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So we are the first

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focused

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practice, at least the subset of the practice.

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That's the center for disc replacement

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on exactly that.

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We do about 50 50

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lumbar and and cervical.

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We're starting to to say interestingly the enough

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and and death. I'll I'll segue into what's

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different between last year and and this year,

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we're starting to see the need for revision

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surgery. I mean, the cervical spot.

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And this really came about

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just sitting around the the the lounge and

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talking to my hip and knee colleagues

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about joint replacement. And they said, well, you

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know,

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what do you do when when either they

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wear out or they failed or if there's

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other issues?

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And you know, Always said, well, you know,

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when a disc replacement fails, the the bailout

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allowed us to do fusion.

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And they said, well, why don't we just

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do a revision. We do revision hips and

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knees all the time,

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and it got me thinking, and we started

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to see some patients now probably 567

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years ago.

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That

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questioned

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the fusion and said, why can't you just

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put another disk in? So we tried

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and in certain circumstances

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it actually is is a better mouse strap.

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So we're not having to fuse every disc

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that we take out.

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We're able to replace this. And there certain

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discs on the market that are better

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for replacements.

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And and and I'm talking really now about

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the cervical spine lumbar as a whole another

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realm

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Cervical spine has taken off and and even

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Becker has projected the market with a 12

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to 15 percent growth year after year.

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And it's a huge multi billion dollar market,

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but if there's hundreds of thousands being done,

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there's gonna be a small percentage that need

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to be revised.

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In fact, we looked at our numbers at

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the Tb well over a thousand, and we

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found the revision rate to be less than

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1 and a half percent.

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Yes, it's small, but with hundred of thousands

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being done,

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people who

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dev devote or at least focus some of

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their pro us Are gonna need to deal

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with this. So that's really what's happened in

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the last year. It's very, very exciting.

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That does sound exciting.

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And in your practice, do you have any

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notable partnership?

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Texas Back Institute partnered with HCA few years

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back. And

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we've helped

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grow

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their footprint in spine in North Texas,

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and I can't even tell you how many

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hospitals and how many offices we've had, but

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our footprint extends with them

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probably 3 to 30, 40, 50 miles from

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the epicenter or Tb, which isn't in plano.

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And do you have any advice for other

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physician leaders that are looking to start their

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own practice?

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This is a tough market.

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The forces have really aligned themselves

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against... Get private practice,

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particularly

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small group, private practice singles, doubles, triples.

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I think if you're gonna make a go

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of it in private practice,

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you need to have economy scale. You need

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to have

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probably

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multi specialty.

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You know, and and then it's not a

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terrible thing.

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To have

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hospital partners in your community, particularly, you know,

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if if they're... If they have a good

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foothold in the community

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Very big, doctor Blu. And I thank you

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for your time today. But before I let

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you go, is there anything else that our

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listeners should know?

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We're hanging in there. You know, as you

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can see, There's a lot of challenges for

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health care, and and, you know, like, you

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1 of my mentors said, just quality, patient

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focused, and there's always room at the top.

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Absolutely. Well I wanna thank you Once again

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for your time today and for joining me

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on the Health care podcast. Thank you Thank

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you.