Hello. This is Franchesca Matthews with the Becker's
ASC review podcast.
I'm thrilled to be joined today by Leslie
Jepsen,
administrator of the Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Network
at Prisma Health. Leslie, thank you so much
for being here today.
Pleasure is all mine. Thank you for the
opportunity.
Of course.
To start off, could you please introduce yourself
and tell us a little bit about your
background?
I'd be happy to. So I've been a
practicing health care executive for the past, twenty
five years.
I've worked all over the country,
in a broad array of roles from finance
to operations to clinical
and,
both in academic settings and in private practice
settings.
Currently, for the past two years, I've been
with Prisma Health in South Carolina where,
I have the great fortune of overseeing orthopedics
and sports medicine for the entire state.
225
clinicians
specializing in specializing in comprehensive musculoskeletal
care, with outpatient rehabilitation services as well.
Excellent. I'm actually from South Carolina, so always
nice to
hear others from the South. And we take
care yeah. We take care of Clemson,
South Carolina State, and the University of South
Carolina. Do you have any allegiances by chance?
I do. I am a Gamecock. My mom
went to USC, but I'm from Charleston, so
I'm more of a a city slicker.
And what are the top three trends that
you're following in health care and ASCs today?
Yeah. Well, you know, health care is a
perpetually dynamic environment. We we know this.
As it pertains to outpatient surgery centers, you
know, I I say what's old is new
again.
When I started my career over twenty years
ago,
there was a proliferation
of retail,
ASCs, that were were predominantly multi specialty.
And then there was some some growth and
then some consolidation
and closures and hospital systems acquiring them. And
at least in this part of the country,
there's,
the same movement again, with the elimination of
the certificate of need in South Carolina. There's
a proliferation of efforts and plans by an
array of health care systems to develop ASCs.
Not all of them will be successful for
a broad array of reasons, but,
there's there's certainly high growth,
taking place in the Southeast with the retail
ASCs. And so I think those that are
singularly special,
in the way of ophthalmology
or GI endoorthopedics,
you know, will be best positioned
to to be successful.
Mhmm. Yeah. Definitely been following a lot of
those certificate of need updates, and there's a
lot of interesting
stuff going on in the Southeast overall.
What are you most excited about right now?
Excited is,
opportunity,
to,
showcase
the great depth and expertise that we have
in Muscus Development Care in my in my
current role.
On a broader level, I'm really, really excited
about
artificial intelligence and surgical robotics.
I think you're gonna see,
more of that enter into the ambulatory arena.
There there's no doubt,
from,
robotics,
doing, you know, high volume,
robotic assisted surgery centers.
I think we'll we'll continue to proliferate.
I think AI is gonna help us get
even slicker on our scheduling and and and
analyzing key metrics in real time more than
retrospective analysis of performance. And those are gonna
help, you know, what I'll call
f one high performance,
teams, surgical teams, which I can I can
talk to you a little bit more about?
But
I'm most excited about AI and,
and its applications. Surgical robotics,
would be would be the top topics. And
then the evolving landscape with our ability to
partner
directly, you know, physicians directly partnering with industry
vendors to
really get precise case management cost predictions,
I think that's that's gonna be a growing
movement as well.
Yeah. Absolutely. Lots to to sort of look
forward to there. I'm curious,
what are some of the ways that
you all have been incorporating AI or evaluating
how you might incorporate incorporate AI at,
at your practice, if any?
Yeah. No. Absolutely.
We are in the process. October 1, we'll
be rolling out,
a comprehensive,
AI solution
for all of our appointment scheduling,
both in our ambulatory clinics and and doing
some work with ASCs.
So streamlining
the, precertification
workout process, the scheduling process,
prior authorization
precerts for for procedures
will be will be, AI associated.
So, we I've got two or three vendors
that we're working with, and, we're excited to
be kicking that off in time for our
new fiscal year.
Very cool. Yeah. There's so much buzz around
AI right now. It's always just really nice
to get real insights from, administrators as to,
you know, what's working and what's not.
Yeah. The key the key is to use
it as an adjunct. Right?
I think there's some fear, and I think
it's very reasonable,
that there's fear about loss of jobs
and and things of that nature. But instead,
I would submit to you that, Ambient AI
is helping, clinicians with transcription.
I I can't, you know, can't understand the
evolution that's taken place in in that space
and continues to to go forward.
So I don't see AI and maybe I'm
naive, but I don't see AI taking over
reading, imaging studies anytime soon, but really assisting,
serving as an adjunct to the clinician and
helping them work smarter. They already work hard
enough as it is. So, just to help
work smarter. And and for us, our focus
is largely on administrative functions and how we
can automate that.
We're really staying out of the clinical space
from from an AI standpoint.
Mhmm. Yeah. Absolutely. And how are you thinking
about growth over the next twelve months?
Yeah. Well, with my orthopedics and sports medicine
hat on, with my market hat on, we're
we're enjoying we're we're market dominant.
We have well over half the state market
share,
for musculoskeletal. We have about 90% of the
market share for pediatric orthopedics for the state.
So we're we're largely dominant. We wanna expand
carefully,
a sustainable growth.
So we have about 5% outpatient visit growth,
for the past twenty four months, so consistent
there.
We're onboarding about 17 more, clinicians this summer,
with the remainder coming on board next month.
And we have about 25 more active recruitments
across the board, across our entire market, which
is 21 counties
is our primary service area, but we we
saw patients for every county in South Carolina
last year.
So it's it's just sustained,
predictable growth,
and,
an imperative to have
seamless orchestration in in how we provide musculoskeletal
services
amongst the care delivery settings. Right? What makes
the most sense for our patients?
Should they be cared for overnight in the
hospital?
Should they be cared for in the ambulatory
surgery setting?
And I think we're we've got our eye
on the future,
which is nano suites
and looking at procedures that will migrate more
to the office setting, which would seem unfathomable
a decade ago. But, you know, carpal tunnels,
diagnostic
knee evaluations,
the scopes, those are those are starting to
to migrate to the office setting, and and
so we wanna be out in front of
that as well. So, you know, for me,
I'm thinking and that goes beyond the next
twelve months. But for me, we're thinking,
where can we provide the highest quality care
at the lowest possible cost for our patients?
And and, and that's what we're, you know,
wrapping our heads around and positioning ourselves for.
Absolutely. I think everything you mentioned there just
really resonates with other things. I've heard from
other administrators and ASC positions, especially the the
sustainable growth aspect.
Is there anything else here that you you
wanna share that we haven't touched on yet?
No. The future is bright for orthopedics
nationally.
The future is very bright for orthopedics in
the Southeast, and it's brightest in South Carolina
and and Tennessee and North Carolina. So,
we're excited about our continued growth journey
and how we can embrace technology
and and have cutting edge facilities,
in support of the wonderful clinicians that I
work for. So,
you know, we're we've got a very bullish
outlook.
Excellent. Well, that is all I have for
you today, Leslie. Thank you so much for
joining us today. It's been a pleasure speaking
with you, and I look forward to connecting
with you again in the future.
Always a pleasure to be part of Becker's.
I for the last, you know, Scott,
met me well over a decade ago, and
and I was able to publish some articles
for him and and participate in some of
the conferences. And and, Becker's has become a
powerhouse, and so we're, we're certainly appreciative to
be a part of it. And thank you
so much for giving me time today.