This is Laura Duda with the Becker's Healthcare
Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by
Nylene Flores, administrator and chief operating officer at
Lake Oconee Orthopedics. Nylene, it's a pleasure to
have you on the podcast today. Hi, Laura.
Thank you.
Now I'm excited for our discussion because I
know there's so much happening in health care
and particularly a lot of transformation in orthopaedics.
And so I'm looking forward to getting a
sense from you of how what you're thinking
about, how you're looking at the future, and
where growth might come from. But before we
dive in, can you introduce yourself and just
toss a little bit more about your background?
Sure. So my name is Nylene Flores, as
you mentioned. I'm currently,
based out of Georgia.
And like you said, I I've been running,
orthopedic practice
now here for the last couple years and
also,
own and operate a company called MedElevate Solutions
where we streamline,
health care processes,
for ASCs and,
practices
throughout The United States.
So I am having,
a lot of fun,
exploring and growing orthopedics in many different areas.
And I have over about eighteen years in
health care overall.
That's amazing to hear. And and thank you
so much for, you know, digging in. I
know it can be a huge responsibility to
run my practice and have none of the
elevator solutions and just continue to work within
the ASC industry. So with that in mind,
what are the top three trends that you're
following right now in health care and ASCs
today?
So
this is gonna be really interesting because
we have
a continued shift really towards paperless
operations,
including a broader implementation of EHRs,
and electronic logging systems
and digital documentation
systems overall.
I think that as our generation,
younger generations
come up in leadership,
this will hopefully in increase in trend.
Also,
I'm watching the decline of independently
owned ASCs, unfortunately.
Consolidation with larger health systems and private equity
is really continuing
as our health care shift,
kinda continues to happen to more employed physicians.
And then also
a heightened focus on quality metrics and transparency,
which is driving accountability and patient centered care.
And, honestly,
with this,
I love the openness
and platforms,
social media and different platforms being utilized to
empower physicians
to basically say what is wrong with the
health care system.
And, hopefully,
that will lead to a revolution
in,
in health care overall with, watching reimbursements
and the way that payers
help us continue to be able to treat
patients in the ambulatory space. And so this
is all something really exciting that, I'm watching.
Absolutely. No. That's definitely fascinating. And I think
especially when you look at, the trend, as
you mentioned, the consolidation in the industry,
new, you know,
people coming in, new organizations, private equity, health
systems, trying to figure out their operational strategy.
It seems like,
there's so much possibility of potential in outpatient,
that I can imagine, you know, transformation is
happening quickly. But I'm curious too. You know,
when you look at, physicians and the tide
as it seems to be turning a little
bit here with both physicians as well as
payers,
you know, where do you see some of
the big
opportunities? What do you see as being the
spaces that,
will, you know, change the most over the
next few years?
Well, hopefully,
the growth of the ASC industry overall, bringing
patients outpatient.
Most recently,
we're we're also increasing acute, you know, acuity
of cases,
and we're seeing higher acuity cases being performed
outpatient. So in general, it much better care
for the patient is being provided outpatient so
that they can recover at home. But
what's really interesting is in my last couple
of authorization
requests,
where we are here is rural Georgia. So
we don't and we also are subject to
certificate of need law here in Georgia. So
it limits a little bit access to surgery
centers for a small practice,
or an independent physician
that's not part of a large group or
a healthcare system. In any case,
I've seen several authorization
requests come through
specifically asking
why we cannot perform, for example, a knee
scope
at a surgery center. So we've actually had
to justify with payers
as to why we're performing
this type of case in a
in a hospital versus a surgery center. And
and then in our case, it's simple. It's
just lack of access.
But, you know, if the payers are starting
to put this as part of the prior
authorizations,
may not be such a bad thing to
have physicians
move more of their cases
outpatient with the backing now or kind of
a little bit of a push from the
payers to make this happen and ultimately, obviously,
save money for the patients
and look for opportunities for physicians to have,
an other source of of income.
And then just overall increasing the openness and
discussion of hard health care truths from safety
concerns to systemic inefficiencies
that there's, you know, real potential for these
conversations
to lead to true tangible improvements
in care, of quality and equity,
of care.
That's amazing to hear. And I I can
imagine, you know, a really, positive trend as
you're looking at outpatient, looking at,
you know, figuring out ways that
the patients and physicians can have more access
to that setting,
and I know it can make a really
big difference. What are you most excited about
right now?
Most excited is focusing on expanding service lines
to meet growing demand while optimizing operational efficiency
through
implementing
something I believe very deeply in, which is
a complete digital transformation,
moving away from paper,
streamlining compliance,
and improving data accessibility. This is what I,
push to my clients, and I tell them
we've got to grow. We've got to optimize
all of our digital solutions
to work efficiently,
smarter.
And so I'm really excited about that and
particularly growing service lines
to include,
you know, the higher acuity cases in the
outpatient space. So I'm really, really excited about
that.
Absolutely. And I think that's such a great
point you brought up because, you know, having
that digital transformation,
having the data,
makes such a big difference, for a variety
of reasons, whether it's trying to be more
efficient
or,
figuring out how you can, you know,
better have conversation with payers and improve your
values. So, you know, when you look realistically
at surgery centers, there's a variety of types
of centers, large, small, independent.
How possible do you see that digital transformation?
What are some of the roadblocks that you
see surgery centers running up against, and how
are the best navigating them?
Well, roadblocks is people. People are the roadblocks.
You can and then also, it it could
be financial as well. Platforms,
can
be expensive
to begin to implement,
to start out because you have to not
only pay for the software, but you've got
to pay your staff to get trained to
use it until you can actually see the
return on investment
as you actually begin to use the product.
So that is the biggest hurdle is
they're just used to doing things their way,
and change is hard. So unless you have
that strong figure
pushing and champion
in your surgery center, And it it doesn't
even have to be the administrator. It doesn't
have to be the clinical leader. It has
to be a champion
in the center that's willing to say, okay.
I'm gonna take the lead in clinical.
I'm gonna take the lead in the business
office to make sure that they are on
board with this transformation.
So that is the biggest hurdle.
I think that
when you do a cost benefit analysis truly,
honestly,
and just get over that initial hump,
you realize that the benefits way outweigh
any cost.
So
that is the biggest hurdle as people.
That makes a lot of sense. And, you
know, I I appreciate that, kind of forward
looking
nature of it because, you know, as you're
you're right, it's an investment, but definitely investment
in the future that if done right, will
make a big difference and have that ROI
that you're looking for.
When you think about Lake Orochi Orthopedics in
general, how are you looking at growth in
the next twelve months? Can you tell us
a little bit more about, additional procedures and
and services that you'll be bringing in?
Yes. So really excited.
We're looking to grow,
add another practitioner here at our practice. Like
I said, we moved from a very busy
practice in Florida,
kinda opened it here.
But most exciting is,
my main orthopedic surgeon is performing
a thumb
replacement surgery with BioPro.
It is a, full joint replacement
of the CMC joints, and so the patients
are doing amazing. We've even he's the only
practitioner currently doing that in the state of
Georgia.
We, unfortunately, can only perform it at a
hospital because we don't have a surgery center
here.
So really excited to just increase different new
service lines and offer,
new procedures.
Not as early it's not really that new.
It's just that not many doctors are doing
it. But it's a great procedure that's allowing
for patients to regain and not have to
do
a traditional procedure that would actually shorten their
thumb. This allows them to keep their full
thumb and have,
great use. We've even done one on a
person only on one hand. So we we
and now we're we're doing our second
patient who's doing both joints. So we've done
both
both hands.
Recovery has been great. So are we looking
to continue to do
innovative,
great procedures
to help patients
in in general? So we're excited about that.
Well, that's fascinating to hear. And what a
cool evolution in technology and medicine and just
being able to, perform really needed procedures.
But also I know the complexity, especially of
the hand and and thumb, you know, is
something that,
it takes a real expertise to do. Nylene,
thank you so much for joining us on
the podcast today. This has been a fun
conversation, and I look forward to connecting with
you again soon.
Great. Thank you so much. I appreciate your
time.