keting campaigns on television, print and beyond, recruiting patients
from around the world. At its peak, Laser Spine had 7 facilities across
the U.S., but it marketed everywhere.
"Our goal was to find ways for people to go to the website, pick up
the phone and call," says Josh Hall, founder of Sage and Sterling
Communications and Laser Spine's former director of marketing com-
munications. "Mission 1 was to inform and educate."
Early on, conditions were perfect for Laser Spine. There were no
competitors or insurers standing in its way. Not only was Laser Spine
the first to offer minimally invasive laser spine surgery — "a unique
and novel product offering that patients couldn't find in hospitals, and
that made it very attractive," says the former employee, who spoke on
the condition of anonymity — but it did so as a strict cash-based busi-
ness.
"Everybody just paid cash. That was a beautiful thing to witness.
There was a lot of money coming in," says the former employee. "It
was fun. And it was clean. It was concierge medicine at its finest. We
didn't have to wait on collections or go back-and-forth with insurers.
Patients paid full cost before surgery. No back billing. We weren't
reliant on diagnostic codes or CPT codes."
For years, the company's cash-based business model thrived. From
its founding in 2005 to 2009, Laser Spine had nearly $300 million in
gross revenue and distributed almost $80 million in dividends to its
owners, according to court records.
The company began as a joint venture between physicians and busi-
ness people who were able to "take that marketing background and
apply it to medicine," says Rodolfo Gari, MD, MBA, founder of
Physician Partners of America, a nationwide practice headquartered
in Tampa.
"You had people who lived and breathed marketing," says Dr. Gari.
3 6 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • A P R I L 2 0 1 9
