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of Medicare managed care in our market, so even if pure Medicare decides not
to pay for the procedures at a substantial rate, the local payers will likely be
more than happy to have us perform them on an outpatient basis.
• The benefits of bundled payments. It's interesting that the bundled pay-
ments we've negotiated with payers have put pressure on the rest of the
providers in the community to lower their episode of care cost for joint replace-
ments. The payers are using our program as a model to approach hospitals and
physician groups to say, "Look, these guys can do procedures at this cost. Why
can't you?" That has precipitated a huge amount of dialogue in the market about
how to improve the cost of care and has created tangential benefits in terms of
our relationships with hospitals within the community. Payers are also trying to
incent joint surgeons to join our program and we've recently credentialed 4
more docs. Our volume will increase even more once they get up to speed.
• Success stories drive case volumes. We're starting to get repeat customers
— patients who've had one knee done and now want the other side replaced.
Individuals who've heard about what we offer from former patients are also
approaching us to see if they're eligible to have their knees done. We continue
to have our marketing and patient education engines working. One of our most
successful strategies involves patient education seminars, where surgeons dis-
cuss how to deal with hip and knee pain, and bring up joint replacement as a
possible treatment option. We're consistently getting well over 100 people at
each seminar and 10% to 12% of attendees schedule appointments with one of
our surgeons within 24 hours.
• They're glad to be back. We really enjoyed our experience at last year's con-
ference, because it's exciting to talk about what we do and we like to share our
insights on how same-day joints can be done, and done well. We also like to get
feedback from the audience about what they're doing, what their goals are,
where they are in their program's evolution and what payers are like in their
markets. We're planning a truly interactive format for this year's conference in
order to get those fresh perspectives.
