Scaling Specialty Growth

The patient experience is a process problem | Matthew Slater, Administrative Director of Orthopaedic Surgery, UC San Diego Health | Ep. 6

Patient experience used to be a fuzzy concept in specialty healthcare. It's not anymore. In Episode 6 of Scaling Specialty Growth, Joe Zboch [https://www.linkedin.com/in/joezboch/] talks with Matthew Slater [https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-slater-dha-mha-lvn-84b7a935/], Administrative Director of Orthopaedic Surgery at UC San Diego Health, about what it actually takes to grow a specialty practice in a crowded market without letting the operational foundation crack. ㅤ They get into the connection between staff experience and patient experience, why most negative reviews are process problems and not care problems, the post-visit text that moved their experience scores, and how strategic hiring tied to access gaps is shaping a growth plan that runs out to 2034. Matthew also previews a new four-story musculoskeletal and neuro-focused building opening in 2029, and closes with a piece of advice pulled from his time as a flight nurse: stop being afraid of the decision. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Matthew Slater [https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-slater-dha-mha-lvn-84b7a935/], DHA, MHA, LVN is Administrative Director of Orthopaedic Surgery at UC San Diego Health, where he leads ambulatory operations, access, and patient experience for the nationally ranked Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, the first program in California to earn the Joint Commission's Advanced Certification in Spine Surgery. Before UC San Diego, Matthew held leadership roles at UCLA Health and served as Director of Ambulatory Operations at Barton Health. He serves on the American Alliance of Orthopaedic Executives (AAOE) Education Council. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover * Why staff experience is the foundation that patient experience sits on, and how UC San Diego Health cut turnover by listening and promoting within * The post-visit text message that lifted experience scores in the "patient knew what to do after their appointment" category * Why most negative reviews are process problems, not care problems * A group-interview hiring philosophy where only nines and tens get hired * Strategic provider recruiting tied to specific access gaps in subspecialties like hand, foot, and ankle, PM&R, and joints * How almost 90% of joints now go home same day, and what that means for how MSK care gets built going forward * A growth plan running out to 2034 and a new four-story MSK and neuro building opening in 2029 * A flight-nurse-era leadership principle: you don't need more data, you need a decision and the willingness to pivot ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned * UC San Diego Health [https://health.ucsd.edu/care/orthopedics/] * American Alliance of Orthopaedic Executives (AAOE) [https://www.aaoe.net/] * Epic * MyChart * The Joint Commission's Advanced Certification in Spine Surgery * The Petco vaccination superstation * Hatch [https://hatchcare.com/]

Growing without adding more people | Ross Rigdon, COO, Raleigh Orthopaedic | Ep. 5

Wake County adds 52 net new residents every single day. For a regional orthopedic practice, that's both a tailwind and a pressure test. More patients means more workflow to absorb, more payer rules to navigate, and less margin for operational error as the organization scales. ㅤ Joe Zboch [https://www.linkedin.com/in/joezboch/] sits down with Ross Rigdon [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ross-rigdon/], Chief Operations Officer at Raleigh Orthopaedic, to talk through what operational growth actually looks like inside one of North Carolina's largest and oldest independent orthopedic practices. Ross and Joe cover payer compliance, staffing strategy, real-time data visibility, and the implementation philosophy Ross applies to both technology and people. Hatch [https://hatchcare.com/] sponsors this episode. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Ross Rigdon [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ross-rigdon/] is the Chief Operations Officer at Raleigh Orthopaedic, the oldest orthopedic practice in eastern and central North Carolina. He's been with the organization for over seven years, moving from Lead DME Clinician and Administrative Fellow to Director of Operations and now COO. He holds an EMT Basic certification and a BS in Exercise Science from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and is an active member of the American Alliance of Orthopaedic Executives (AAOE). ㅤ 📌 What We Cover * How UnitedHealthcare's separate documentation requirement for imaging interpretation created an immediate workflow problem for orthopedic practices, and why the answer had to come from operations, not compliance alone. * Why Ross frames reactive compliance and proactive technology investment as the same job, not two competing priorities. * The natural-language AI dashboard Ross is building with his managed IT vendor: what it queries, what it monitors, and why the point isn't AI novelty but faster access to signals already buried in the practice's own data. * Why Ross pushes back on the vendor promise of 30-50% staff reductions, and what he thinks the better goal actually is for growing organizations. * How Raleigh Orthopaedic approaches staffing retention in a market where patient demand keeps growing and replacing good people is expensive. * The implementation philosophy Ross applies equally to technology rollouts and people: start with something small and consistent, get a reliable baseline, then build from it. * What Ross tells early-career healthcare administrators about learning every department before trying to lead any of them. ㅤ Visit Hatch [https://hatchcare.com/] to learn more about scaling referral operations for specialty practices.

Making specialty growth operations a game | Amy Seehafer, COO, OSMS | Ep. 4

Operations teams in specialty healthcare know what growth feels like from the inside: more clinics, more providers, more volume, and a back-office that's always running behind. This episode looks at how a COO with a fresh-eyed perspective manages that pressure without letting the organization come apart. ㅤ Joe Zboch [https://www.linkedin.com/in/joezboch/] sits down with Amy Seehafer [https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-seehafer-mba-sphr-shrm-scp-231136b/], COO of Orthopedic & Sports Medicine Specialists (OSMS) [http://www.osmsgb.com], a physician-owned practice with 40+ providers, 9 locations, and $100M+ in annual revenue across northeast Wisconsin. Amy came from 20 years in HR and shared services operations outside of healthcare. This is her first year and a half in the industry, and she uses that perspective to ask questions her peers stopped asking long ago. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Amy Seehafer [https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-seehafer-mba-sphr-shrm-scp-231136b/] is the COO of OSMS, where she oversees enterprise operations, people strategy, and financial performance across 9 clinical locations and $100M+ in annual revenue. She holds an MBA and dual senior HR certifications (SPHR and SHRM-SCP). Before joining OSMS in September 2024, she spent 20+ years leading shared services operations, organizational design, change management, and HR strategy across complex multi-site environments. Healthcare was new. The ops discipline wasn't. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover * Why Amy's three-part framework — people, process, technology — runs in that exact order, and what happens when practices skip the first two steps * How OSMS implemented patient self-scheduling across 9 locations and the "stabilize before you optimize" rule that kept it from derailing * The stop/start/continue method OSMS uses to audit processes without the baggage of how things have always been done * What Amy and her team discovered by shadowing departments they don't normally work in, and what gets noticed that insiders miss * The Goldilocks problem of labor optimization during growth: always slightly over or under, never quite right * How formal project management and change management made a new clinic opening feel, in Amy's words, easy * Advice for directors moving toward COO-level roles: learn the inputs and outputs of the business before pulling any levers ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned * Orthopedic & Sports Medicine Specialists (OSMS) [http://www.osmsgb.com] * Hatch [https://hatchcare.com/] — mentioned in the episode outro

Workers' comp needs more than a referral | Kelli Anderson, COO, DMOS | Ep. 3

Running five clinic locations, 30 physicians, and 50+ PAs and therapists while opening a sixth site takes more than a good plan. It takes someone who knows exactly which dials to turn and when to leave them alone. ㅤ In this episode, https://www.linkedin.com/in/joezboch/Joe Zboch [https://www.linkedin.com/in/joezboch/] sits down with https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelli-anderson-b4a92279/Kelli Anderson [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelli-anderson-b4a92279/], COO at https://www.dmos.com/DMOS Orthopaedic Centers [https://www.dmos.com/] in Des Moines, Iowa, to talk about what operational growth actually looks like inside a large, independent orthopedic group. ㅤ The conversation covers how DMOS decided to grow their workers' comp service line, the technology gap they found, and the referral portal they built to close it, their process for surfacing ideas from staff, and how Kelli thinks about AI in a way that's grounded in actual operations rather than hype. If you're scaling a specialty group and trying to keep the clinical machine running while also building what's next, this one's for you. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Kelli Anderson [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelli-anderson-b4a92279/] is the Chief Operating Officer at https://www.dmos.com/DMOS Orthopaedic Centers [https://www.dmos.com/], where she's been for over seven years, first as Director of Revenue Cycle, now running operations across all five locations. Before DMOS, she held VP and Director-level roles at Ciox Health, a national health information management company, with deep expertise in ICD-10 coding, clinical documentation, and revenue cycle optimization. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover * How Kelli thinks about keeping daily operations stable while pushing major organizational growth initiatives, and why "keeping the temperature" is the actual job * The quarterly employee focus group model DMOS uses to surface frontline ideas, and why one of those conversations changed their social media strategy * How DMOS used peer benchmarking through The OrthoForum to identify workers' comp as a growth opportunity worth investing in across people, process, and technology * The honest assessment process DMOS ran on their workers' comp service line, feedback gathering, gap analysis, and ultimately landed on a communication portal as the fix * Why workers' comp referrals function more like B2B relationships than standard provider referrals, and what that means for how you build your technology stack * How Kelli approaches moments when a project hits a wall, fix-it mode vs. step-back mode, and how to tell which one the situation calls for * The framework DMOS used to choose Norwalk, Iowa, for their sixth location, zip code heat maps, housing growth data, and a little bit of luck * How DMOS is already deploying AI in their call center and urgent injury clinics, and Kelli's filter for deciding which AI to adopt and which to watch from a distance ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned * DMOS Orthopaedic Centers [https://www.dmos.com/], a Des Moines-based independent orthopedic group, has five locations (sixth opening in Norwalk, Iowa) * The OrthoForum [https://theorthoforum.com/], a national organization of privately-owned orthopedic practices; DMOS has been a member for several years * Hatch [https://hatchcare.com/], a referral operations platform for specialty healthcare

The referral workflow nobody digitized | Chris Poole, CEO, Hatch | Ep. 2

Referral management is the front door of specialty care. Most front doors are broken. This episode of Scaling Specialty Growth gets into why: fragmented workflows, no real data, and a process that hasn't been digitized despite decades of EHR adoption everywhere else. https://www.linkedin.com/in/joezboch/Joe Zboch [https://www.linkedin.com/in/joezboch/] sits down with https://www.linkedin.com/in/cspoole/Chris Poole [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cspoole/], CEO of https://hatchcare.com/Hatch [https://hatchcare.com/], to pull apart why specialty practices are still muscling referrals through with bodies, and what it actually costs them. ㅤ Chris brings a rare combination of venture capital experience, early-stage healthcare startup operations, and a front-row seat to the referral data problem through Hatch's work with leading specialty groups. This conversation covers the gap between what executives think they know about their referral pipeline and what the data, if they had it, would actually show. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Chris Poole [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cspoole/] is CEO of https://hatchcare.com/Hatch [https://hatchcare.com/], the referral management platform built for specialty care. Before Hatch, he served as Managing Director at 25m Health, a LifePoint Health-backed venture studio, and as CFO of MetaPhy Health, a virtual care company serving gastroenterology practices. He also spent years as a Principal at Solidus Company, LP, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on healthcare. He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover * Why specialty practice CEOs consistently overestimate the quality and completeness of their referral data, and what they're actually working with * The "muscling referrals through with bodies" problem: how front offices absorb broken infrastructure with manual labor * Why the EHR has never been the right tool for referral management, and what it actually costs per referral to work around that ($30 on average, more for workers' comp) * How slow patient outreach, days or weeks after the referral is made, kills referral-to-appointment conversion before the team even gets to the phone call * What referral leakage looks like in practice: groups reaching out twice and stopping, leaving pools of unconverted patients untouched * The case for a referral-first architecture: why referral management has to be the core product, not a feature bolted onto an EHR or patient engagement tool * Hatch's current results: 30% reduction in administrative time per referral today, with a target of 50%+ by the end of the year, and full automation of a subset of referrals in development * How private digital access doors and co-branded referral portals create VIP access lanes for employers and high-value referring partners ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned * Hatch [https://hatchcare.com/], the referral management platform discussed throughout * Joe Zboch on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/joezboch/] * Chris Poole on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cspoole/]