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

Why manual referral tracking scales a practice backward | Misty Sullivan, Care Center Administrator, Proliance Rainier Orthopedic Institute | Ep. 10

Referrals are how an independent specialty practice grows, and right now most of that work still runs on spreadsheets, paper, and someone's memory. This episode looks at what happens when a practice gets serious about the referral process and treats it as a growth driver instead of a cost of doing business. Joe Zboch [https://www.linkedin.com/in/joezboch/] sits down with Misty Sullivan [https://www.linkedin.com/in/misty-sullivan-mba-a7664a246/], care center administrator at Proliance Rainier Orthopedic Institute, to talk through balancing aggressive growth goals with operational excellence. They get into why customer service has to come first, why access to care is part of the growth conversation, and why manual tracking quietly scales a practice backward. Misty also explains the visibility gap that keeps her up at night, the metrics she wishes she could track, and where an operations leader should actually start. The episode is brought to you by Hatch [https://hatchcare.com/]. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Misty Sullivan [https://www.linkedin.com/in/misty-sullivan-mba-a7664a246/] is care center administrator at Proliance Rainier Orthopedic Institute and the Surgery Center at Rainier, a seven-physician orthopedic private practice in the Pacific Northwest and part of the larger Proliance Surgeons group. She oversees roughly 70 employees across a clinic, MRI, X-ray, a four-room surgery center, and a satellite location. She has spent years improving the referral process inside the broader Proliance organization and has also helped primary care clinics learn to process referrals. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover * Why customer service and access to care sit at the front of every growth decision, and why promising referrals you can't see for three months breaks both ㅤ * How manual tracking on Excel and paper stops working as a practice grows, and why it costs time, manpower, and money ㅤ * The visibility gap leadership often can't see: no single view of how many referrals came in, where they came from, or who worked them ㅤ * Why SharePoint and Teams aren't built for processing referrals, including no keyword customization and no way to flag urgency ㅤ * The four metrics Misty tracks: referrals received, receipt to first attempt to contact, receipt to schedule, and the reason a patient couldn't be scheduled ㅤ * How a process map and training documentation help a lean team onboard, cross-train, and promote from within ㅤ * Where to start when getting serious about referral operations: staffing first, then process, then technology ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned * Hatch [https://hatchcare.com/] referral database * Qlik (data and reporting) * Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Teams * Excel * Puyallup Sumner Chamber of Commerce * SWOT analysis * Contact Misty: m.sullivan@proliancesurgeons.com [m.sullivan@proliancesurgeons.com]

Not all growth is good growth | Michelle Winfield-Hanrahan, Chief Clinical Access Officer, UAMS | Ep. 9

Most specialty groups treat growth as the goal and figure the operations will catch up. This episode is about why that order is backwards. Host Joe Zboch [https://www.linkedin.com/in/joezboch/] of Hatch [https://hatchcare.com/] sits down with Michelle Winfield-Hanrahan [https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-winfield-hanrahan-msn-mha-bsn-rn-b3b2593b], Chief Clinical Access Officer at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, to work through one idea she opens with and never lets go of: not all growth is good growth. They talk through what it takes to actually support volume, the capacity, the workforce, the financial backing, and the quality of care, before anyone says yes to it. You'll hear how she breaks down a problem when ten people in a room can't agree on what it is, why a referral is a wealth of data most groups ignore, and what changes when you treat the front door as a growth driver instead of the cost of doing business. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Michelle Winfield-Hanrahan [https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-winfield-hanrahan-msn-mha-bsn-rn-b3b2593b] is Chief Clinical Access Officer and Associate Vice Chancellor for Access at UAMS, Arkansas' only academic medical center and the state's only adult Level 1 trauma center. There she oversees enterprise access, care management, utilization, transfers, clinical command operations, and oncology nursing. She came to the role from a nursing foundation and years as a healthcare access consultant, which is where she watched a lot of the patterns she talks about play out across institutions. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover * Why not all growth is good growth, and the four things volume has to line up with before it counts: capacity, workforce, financial backing, and quality of care. ㅤ * The hidden gap that sinks a rollout: a group opens a new practice but nobody budgeted the two people needed at the registration desk to check patients in. ㅤ * How Michelle triages a problem when a room can't agree, by starting with what most people name rather than jumping straight to the goal. ㅤ * The people, process, technology order she works in, and why technology is sometimes the wrong place to start. ㅤ * The legacy-work test: figure out where a workflow came from, then ask whether it's still relevant today. ㅤ * Why a referral is a wealth of data about what your community and referring providers actually think of you. ㅤ * Her 24-hour rule: every referred patient gets reached out to within a day, and why closing the loop with the referring provider keeps volume coming. ㅤ * The failed phone line: a competitor's payer went out of network, the institution blasted flyers and a dedicated number, then put one person on a line taking 100 calls an hour. ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned * Service Fanatics: How to Build Superior Patient Experience the Cleveland Clinic Way by James Merlino, MD (the book Michelle's team was reading) ㅤ * MyChart, referenced as one of the channels for reaching referred patients ㅤ * Hatch [https://hatchcare.com/], for scaling referral operations to drive growth and efficiency

What ops leaders actually think about AI | Ep. 8

This episode steps back from the guest chair. Joe Zboch [https://www.linkedin.com/in/joezboch/], director of marketing at Hatch [https://hatchcare.com/] and host of Scaling Specialty Growth, recaps what five COOs and operations leaders at scaling practices taught him about the job. The throughline surprised him. ㅤ He expected operators to be mechanical and formula-driven. What he heard instead was that operations is about people and communication, and that the people part really is the operating system. Listeners get the top three takeaways from the first run of episodes: why people come before process and technology, why you can't optimize before you stabilize, and what operations leaders actually think about AI. It's a short reflection on what it takes to be an operations leader, and a read on where the show is headed next. ㅤ 📌 What we cover * Why people and communication, not a secret-sauce framework, turned out to be the real operating system * People first, process second, technology third as the actual order of operations * How a quarterly staff forum at DMOS lets feedback bubble up from the roots of the practice to the top * The start-small rule: a few chords before the whole song, and why you can't optimize before you stabilize * Treating change like a game the team plays together, so tough becomes fun * Setting KPIs and milestones so you can right the ship when a plan goes wayward * What operations leaders actually think about AI: grow with the staff you have, and let it clear the low-value tasks that lead to burnout * Why turnover in coordinator, contact center, and access center roles drops with training and a people-forward approach

Why deep integration is the harder path in GI | Jenn Muina, Divisional VP, Gastro Health | Ep. 7

Roll-ups are common in specialty healthcare. Deep integration is not. On episode 7 of Scaling Specialty Growth, Joe Zboch [https://www.linkedin.com/in/joezboch/] sits down with Jenn Muina [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-muina-mba-lssgb-73654138/], Divisional VP for Florida at Gastro Health, to talk about what it actually takes to fold an acquired GI practice into a national specialty operation. Jenn ran M&A integration at Gastro Health before her current role, so she knows the work from the inside. ㅤ The conversation covers why Gastro Health chose deep technical integration over a federated model, how the team listens to the front desk before changing anything, and what becomes possible when an entire network sits on one EHR instance. For operators scaling specialty groups through acquisition, this is the playbook from someone who's done the integration work. Brought to you by Hatch [https://hatchcare.com/]. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Jenn Muina [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-muina-mba-lssgb-73654138/] is Divisional Vice President for Florida at Gastro Health, where she leads operations across the founding division of a 7-state, 400+ physician GI platform. Before her current role, she was Director of Integration at Gastro Health, where she co-led M&A integrations and system implementations that shaped the company's operating model. She holds an MBA in Healthcare from Florida International University and is a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover * Why Gastro Health chose deep technical integration over leaving acquired practices on separate systems * Building a cross-functional integration team that operates as change agents * Listening to front desk staff, schedulers, and intake coordinators before introducing any change * How a single EHR instance across divisions makes care-gap data finally addressable * Closing recall gaps for patients who would otherwise drift out of the panel * The pilot-first approach to new technology and new processes * AI as a complement to existing teams, not a replacement * Treating AI as both a workflow accelerator and an enabler of net-new workflows ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned * Gastro Health [https://gastrohealth.com/] * Hatch [https://hatchcare.com/] * Jenn Muina on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-muina-mba-lssgb-73654138/] * Joe Zboch on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/joezboch/]

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/]