Speaker 0: 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.

Speaker 1: Thank you, Collie, for having me.

Speaker 0: So before we dive into our questions, could you just introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background?

Speaker 1: 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.

Speaker 0: Great. And I'd love to hear your top three priorities, head into the new year.

Speaker 1: 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.

Speaker 0: 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?

Speaker 1: 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.

Speaker 0: 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.

Speaker 1: 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.

Speaker 0: 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?

Speaker 1: 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.

Speaker 0: 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.

Speaker 1: 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.

Speaker 0: 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

Speaker 1: 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.

Speaker 0: Exactly. Sounds like an absolutely priceless aspect of the of the job.

Speaker 1: 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.

Speaker 0: Definitely. Well, Daniel, thank you again for joining us in the podcast today. I look forward to connecting again in the future.

Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Appreciate the opportunity.