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This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Healthcare
Podcast, and we are live at the business
and operations of ASCs.
I'm currently joined by John Brady, who is
the CEO of Fox Valley Orthopedic Institute. John,
thanks for joining me today. We'd love to
start our conversation by having you take a
moment to introduce yourself and tell us a
little bit more about your work in the
industry.
Thank you, Grace. Again, I'm John Brady. I'm
the CEO of Fox Valley Orthopaedics, which is
located in the western suburbs far western suburbs
of the Chicagoland area.
We take care of patients from basically
the Wisconsin state line down to the Illinois
River
and almost all the way to Iowa and
east to the the western suburbs, DuPage County
area. It's a broad geography. We have 10
offices, 8 with physicians and PT and 2
stand alone PT. And then we have an
ASC in our primary corporate office, our main
office in Geneva, Illinois. It's a 4 OR
ASC.
We're hoping to do 4,000 cases, orthopedic cases
this year. We treat a full range of
musculoskeletal
from orthopedic surgery. We have podiatrists.
We have a rheumatologist,
and some PM and R docs who do
pain.
Wonderful. Well, thanks for being here. Mhmm. I'd
love to start our conversation
discussing ASC volume.
This is expected to increase across the country
by 16% by the year 2032.
So with this growth, what are the most
pressing challenges to maintaining a positive patient experience?
Well, I actually I read that article the
other day, and I actually think that number's
a little low. I think it's gonna grow
even more than that.
ASC,
like most things in healthcare, needs to really
focus on access.
And access at the patients, you know, when
the patient wants it and can get it.
That's a really, really important thing. That nothing
is going to drive that patient experience better
than being able to get the procedure in
a timely manner, you know, within a timeframe
that you work on with them. So we
work very hard on that to make sure
that we can get patients in with you
know, we do all the necessary screenings. We
set the appropriate expectations for, you know, timing.
It takes longer to get a joint in
than it does a closed reduction on our
wrist. Things like that. So we make sure
that we're communicating that, and we make sure
that our clinic staffs are aligned with what's
going on in our ASC so they're not
overpromising and causing us to under deliver. We
make sure that we have a really solid
line of communication there.
Absolutely.
And kinda going off of that, what strategies
have worked for your organization in tackling those
challenges, and what's one recommendation you have for
health care leaders to stay ahead? Well, it's
interesting. We recently
couple years ago, 2 practices merged
right before I started.
And, you know, 2 very different cultures. The
the the legacy Fox Valley group had the
surgery
center. The group that merged in did not
have a surgery center. They did all their
things at different centers around the area.
So understanding workflows and processes, you know, from
the clinic side to get those patients to
come, you know, to come to our facility.
It was a challenge. I mean, there were
some cultural challenges there.
But we've done a really nice job in
doing that. We've made some very direct efforts
to do that by creating 1 health one
EMR
that also is connected to the scheduling for
the ASC.
Working very closely to make sure that we're
cross training staff.
So legacy South
FVO staff are going up to the north
offices where we merge and vice versa. So
people are seeing how all those things work.
It really helps because what it's doing is
it's allowing us to understand the nuances of
scheduling for the different patients we have and
the different physicians that you know, what they
want. And it's working out really well. And
we're seeing great efficiencies being achieved out of
it, which has led to
in in no small part led to a
lot of our growth.
And how can leaders ensure their staff are
well equipped to help patients navigate the financial
aspects of care? And how does this benefit
patient provider relationships?
Yeah. This is, this is a tough question
because no one wants to talk about money.
You know, we you know, when you hear
people you see reports where you're not collecting
all your co pays, you know, things like
that.
You're asking people to have very difficult conversations
about some very expensive things. I mean, it
costs the same as, you know, buying a
car in some instances for some of the
surgeries they're doing.
So we have dedicated patient financial advisors
that and our staff knows to not get
into conversations
if they're not trained to do it. And
they they feel very comfortable referring them off.
They're not dumping the patient. Rather, they're getting
them to where they need to be to
have a meaningful conversation.
We're also looking at direct contracting in a
different way.
Organizations like MD Save on the employer side
and HealthMe
on the direct to consumer side for the
high deductible health plans and things like people
with those.
That's helping out a lot because it's really
creating a level of transparency. The patients can
go in, they can see what's in the
bundle, they can see what they need to
add. And this is something that we haven't
formally kicked all these off yet, but in
the tests that we've run with it, people
are very happy about them. And we're looking
forward to seeing that really grow and help
help our staff to be able to refer
patients so they can get the answers they
need.
And as we wrap up here, do you
have any last parting words or anything else
you'd like to share on the podcast?
Yeah. I think the ASC space is a
great place to be right now. I think
that Medicare has started to recognize
that ASCs
are
the value proposition
in in surgery, especially, you know, outpatient surgery
compared to the hospital outpatient departments. We're seeing
payers recognize that, you know, the Medicare opening
up ASCs for
shoulder replacements this year was huge. And that
things like that make a big difference. So
we're starting to see in orthopedics
the ability to do more. 5 years ago,
it was joints. Now it's the shoulders. As
we go forward, we're gonna see more and
more of that. And I think that's the
real opportunity. So we have to be efficient
to be able to handle that growing volume
without breaking the bank and having to create
new facilities and and then buy new equipment.
Awesome. Well, John, thanks so much for joining
me today on the Becker's Healthcare podcast. Again,
we are live at the business and operations
of ASCs. Thanks so much. Thank you very
much, Chris.