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S P I N E
S U R G E R Y
From cold call to all-in
We were doing ophthalmology, ENT, GI, plastics, podiatry, pain and
some orthopedics — and surviving almost entirely on the eye service.
In-house, we had a decade-old C-arm that couldn't even hold a picture.
We didn't own a microscope, had only 1 radiolucent OR table and no
instrumentation whatsoever.
So why did we turn to spine? First, it's an emerging specialty with a
growing need. Second, we could really put ourselves out there as the
premiere spine ASC in our area if we did it right. Third — and let's be
honest — the reimbursement is attractive.
Finding surgeons was a matter of good, old-fashioned working the
phones and setting up meetings and trying to sell them on the idea. We'd
talked to others in the industry, in other cities and states, and had an idea
of what it would take to set up a program, but we still had to convince
area spine surgeons to build the program with us. We found surgeons in
the Yellow Pages and on Google, via recommendations from other professionals and by speaking with vendors about who in the area might be
approachable. From there, we called and tried to make appointments
with the surgeons we'd identified.
It was hard — we generally found the surgeons had achieved a level
of comfort in the hospital setting. They liked the resources, the ability
to pull staff and equipment from different areas. They also had a trust
factor built from previous experiences.
To overcome this, we started by promising the surgeons we would
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O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | N O V E M B E R 2012
