Imagine this. You're at the Hyatt Regency Chicago surrounded by the top minds in the ambulatory surgery center industry. Welcome to the Becker's 30th annual meeting, the business and operations of ASCs from October 30th to November 2, 2024. Picture the excitement as you collect business cards from over a 1000 executive level attendees forging priceless connections. Feel the buzz of conversations as you participate in more than 60 sessions led by over 225 elite ASC speakers. Envision yourself gaining actionable insights on topics like private equity strategies, ASC business growth, and innovations in spine, orthopedics, GI, ophthalmology, and cardiology. Now imagine yourself listening to inspiring keynotes from Hall of Fame boxing world champion, Lila Ali, and professional basketball player, Caitlin Clark. Their stories will motivate you to take your business to new heights. You'll leave with a wealth of knowledge and a network of connections to help lead your ASC into the next year. Don't miss out. Get registered today. Visit beckershospitalreview.com and click on the events page to find the conference website. That's the beckershospitalreview.com events page. See you in Chicago. This is Scott Becker with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by one of the smartest, most entrepreneurial, and brilliant orthopedic surgeons in the country. We're joined today by doctor Scott Sigman. And and Scott's gonna take us through a handful of different efforts that he's watching that he's involved in. He's thinking about really a fascinating high energy leader, has his own podcast and his own nickname just like LeBron. He's known by just the fro. Really a good, good leader and person. Scott, doctor Sigmund, can you take a moment, introduce yourself, and and tell us about a few of the core endeavors that you're focused on currently? Oh, Scott, it's always such a pleasure to talk to you. I always look forward to our times together, all of your meetings, as well as, all of the amazing news that you are always putting out. You're at the top of my list as far as the things I do on a daily basis, but it's a pleasure. So, yeah, my name is doctor Scott Sigman. I'm an orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine in the private practice, just north of Boston. And there's sort of 3 exciting things that I'm doing right now that I was gonna hopefully share with you and and the listeners as well, and that is that I'm the chief medical officer and founder of Ortholase Orthopedic Laser Centers, and we have a new CEO in our successful scaling that we're gonna be doing as well as I thought it'd be really cool to talk about, private equity backed MSO models in orthopedics and how we're having success in my model, and my new book's coming out too. So that's what I was hoping we could cover today. That's fantastic. Tell us a little bit about let's start with the private equity side because there's been so many different questions about where private equity fits in health care, where they could still make it work in the practice management model. Tell us what you're seeing and what's going right quite frankly, because I'd love to hear that. People could use more of that. Yeah. And I I think I always like to start off here, Scott, by saying, you know, private equity. What does that mean? Like, how does that involve the day to day operations of a practice? And I think the better term would really be private equity backed MSO model for for private practice management. Because at the end of the day, the private equity, you know, the the the people that provide the money are not involved at all in the day to day operations of our practice. They set up a managerial service organization that is completely independent process, And that's what we joined 3 years ago with Spire Orthopedics. We were about the 3rd or 4th group to jump in at that point. So we're about 5 years into the existence of this MSO model. And, you know, I have to say, it's been a very corporate practice of medicine. And we're a majority physician owned group. But what's happened with with Spires that, you know, we're we're we've grown at this point now to a 170 physicians, 40 locations across the northeast in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island. We own 5 ASCs. And, really, we're just expanding and providing the ability and opportunity to scale our business and be able to add physicians and add services to our practice, but still really focus on the clinical side of things without having to worry about all the business stuff on a day to day. Thank you. And and talk to us about, like, 3 years in, pleased that you folks did a transaction with private equity, not pleased. How do you sort of view that? Yeah. I mean, I I think that, you know, I looked at it. You know, I'm 30 years into practice. Right, Scott? And, you know, prior to this event before me joining, had I, you know, been about ready to retire, what do I get maybe 2 months of accounts receivable? I had no value in my practice. I built took 30 years of my life to build something and then you walk away. And now, I have ownership in that process. Not only do I have ownership in it, but I literally have shares in the corporation. So when we all spend time to build this group and to have it grow and and I have to say, you know, we've had tremendous leadership, with Chris Fusco as our CEO. We now have a CFO. We have a CIO. We have a chief legal counsel. And all of these things are in place that really not only allow us to grow, but also protect us from the growth of other institutions and things that are around us. So we have somebody really, you know, holding up the fort for us, giving us a foundation, allows us to scale and grow. And and the value of what I invested in 3 years has grown significantly. So I have a lot of confidence. I've never had anybody give me a call and say, you've gotta use this steroid, or you gotta start seeing more patients, or you're not doing enough operations. We're run by physicians. And so the clinical, you know, basis of medicine is is focused on we have a a CGB, which is a clinical governance board, which is physicians that decide when we're gonna bring in new doctors, when we're gonna bring in new ancillary services. So it's been good. I really have to say I've been very pleased that we've made this decision. Of course, I also feel that we picked the right horse and the people that we're working for have really been fantastic. That's fantastic. Talk about Ortho Laser and talk about that business and how you got this started and where you're at today on that. Tell us about that. I appreciate that. So that was really born out of the opioid epidemic. Everybody that knows me knows that, you know, I've had a passion for opioid sparing orthopedic surgery and always looking for new modalities and ideas. And so we started this this company to provide, you know, a a new service to our communities, and and it's really impressive how it's grown. I just got back from London for the the worldwide photobiomodulation conference, and it's just incredible how, laser and photobiomodulation is working its way into mainstream health care. What 6 years ago was a very difficult conversation trying to educate doctors and patients on a new modality has really become much more mainstream. And so we've really we're very fortunate. We brought in a new CEO, Roden Beyer, who is, you know, from the orthopedic capital of the world in Warsaw, Indiana. And Rod was just coming off a successful exit with an extremity being sold to Medartis, and the timing was perfect. And he's been on board with us now for about 4 months. We've closed our $7,000,000 series a. We're changing our business model a little bit. We're still been a franchise model where we, you know, we have physician owners, but now we're thinking more along the lines of a business partnership with our our surgeon partners, and the idea of sort of think like a surgery center where we're gonna go into partnership and ownership with each one of these centers and do the the legwork on the business side of things and then have our surgeon partners be able to, you know, manage and share patients with us and still be able to provide outstanding care. We like to say that we're, you know, we're surgeon driven, patient focused, and community centric, and we brought on Terry Schlatterbach, who's the chairman of the board for us, who's also the chairman for, OrthoPediatrics, Kenny Hancock from the CEO of Link Partners. We have a tremendous leadership team, and we're about ready to really take this business to the next level with our surgeon partners. Well, that's fantastic. And Kenny Hancock, he happens to be as good person as they come. Talk about how you got involved with Kenny. I mean, as good a guy as they come. Yeah. Kenny's fantastic. And so, again, you know, life is all about relationships. Right? As an entrepreneur, I'm an orthopedic surgeon. I'm an expert at knees and shoulders left and right, but do I truly know how to take a business and scale it from 16 centers that are currently open to hopefully having, you know, 200? Absolutely not. So you have to surround yourself with people that are expert in things that you aren't. And so Rod Meyer, who is, you know, just literally just an incredible person, these are the connections that he has, and Kenny Hancock was more than gracious enough to join us on our board. So we just went down to Nashville to check out how he's running Link Partners, which is an amazing ASC acquisition and growth company. And so we're gonna go back to our board, you know, with this new strategy of how we're gonna expand. We're gonna continue with our franchise model, but, you know, using the the the knowledge that we've gained from Kenny Hancock and Terry Schlatterbach, as well as Rod, we're really excited for our future. And that that's that's really amazing. So so, doctor Segment, those 2 big things, I mean and that could be enough for any one person. What else are you is front and center of your mind currently? What else are you focused on? I'm super excited about helping other doctors do a lot of the things that I've become quite good at, which, you know, everybody jokes around, you can't turn on a computer these days without seeing my face pop up somewhere, but I'm very proud. You know, I'm a I'm an orthopedic surgeon. I work I I joke around. I'm in private practice in a small village north of Boston. I'm not in a large academic center, yet I have a voice, and I get to share my experiences with others through the Ortho Show podcast, which I'm very proud of. As we both know, podcasting is a great way to contribute and develop messaging. But with my coauthor, Matthew Ray Scott, we're in the process right now of getting our book through the editing process, Physician Brand RX. And, you know, it's a digital world. And it used to be, you just hang up a shingle, you start your practice, you sit back and you wait. And then, you know, 20 years later, your practice is a critical mass and you're doing the things that you wanna do. But nowadays, everyone, you know, is really, you know, checking everybody out in the digital space. And so, you know, you my mother who's 84 years of age will Google her doctors before she makes an appointment. And that's what the real world is doing. And so what we wanna try and do is establish a pathway for surgeons, busy surgeons, physicians that are out there, to come up with a way to be able to message appropriately so that you can find your ideal patients without having to wait for years. And we've interviewed some, like, 75 of the best digital opinion leaders that you can think of. You know, some of our dear friends like Michael Redler and Seth Sherman, Betsy Grunch, and Sharif Bachey, who have truly mastered the digital world of social media and developed amazing brands for themselves so that, it's really what their their patients can find them. They know who they are before they get there, and we're gonna lay out a pathway for our surgeons and colleagues to be able to do that in an efficient manner. Literally fascinating, Scott. And and so I'll ask you the final question, doctor Sigman. Where do you find the energy to do all the things you do? You do an amazing job. You put tremendous schedule. You also do a lot of mission work. I mean, where do you find the energy to do all the things you do? Yeah. You know, I go to bed early, Scott, and I wake up early. And I find I'm usually up by 4:30. I'm off the Peloton by 5:15. I've walked my dog. And then I've usually got about an hour and 45 minutes before the rest of the world wants to get at me. I think I texted you at 5 30 this morning, and you graciously accepted that. So I think the most important thing you can do is to stay organized and really to surround yourself with good people. You cannot do it all yourself. Developing relationships. I have you know, I am partnered now with Veradigm revenue cycle management on the podcast. So now I have a team, and you know that team pretty well, Scott, too because we share the same teams for our podcast development. I'm writing a book with an amazing person, Matthew Ray Scott, who's gonna help coauthor this with me. We've got a leadership team at Ortholaser that is absolutely top notch, and I'm partnered with Spire, which provides me the management team. So at the end of the day, I'm not doing this all alone. I've done it by developing these relationships and being surrounded by great people so that you can do great things. Just fantastic, doctor Sigman. I'm always inspired. Just fantastic what you do. Thank you for joining us today on the Becker's healthcare podcast. Keep up the fantastic work. Just amazing. Such a pleasure to be here, Scott. Look forward to seeing you again soon.