Becker's ASC Review

28 ORTHOPEDICS 3 key components to Dr. Robert Bray's spine practice growth By Carly Behm R obert Bray Jr., MD, has big plans for the practice he founded, Newport Beach, Calif.- based DISC Sports and Spine Center, now that it has private equity backing. He spoke about the three facets that will help scale and grow DISC on the "Becker's Healthcare Spine and Orthopedic" podcast. Question: What does the deal with Trias Global and Chicago Pacific Founders mean for the practice? Dr. Robert Bray: It's been an exciting few months. We just completed our deal with Chicago Pacific founders as a new expansion model. I think it's interesting and gives us a lot of opportunity for future ventures. e basis was we took everything that DISC has learned over the last number of years, being in the outpatient market for more than 22 years, and created a new model, which we're calling Trias Global. It has three components. First, it's creating all the outpatient high acuity spine into a global billing event. We're taking and wrapping everything that happens for the event of care into one piece. at's allowing a great deal of cost efficiency on the site of service reallocation or moving things from the hospital to the outpatient center, which I've been a champion of. [Second], it looks at a new way of analytics, which we're looking at for quality assurance, and we needed to do this in order to be able to create a replicable situation. We've created an analytic model that looks at things a little dif- ferently. We're looking at decision-making, what choice of procedure that's done across the board by cost efficiency and linking it into patient-derived outcomes. So we're basically getting down to are the physicians making a good choice? Are they getting good outcomes? Is that saving money to the system? e third is that it looks at the entire management or creating a musculoskeletal man- agement company. It's a big venture and we're very excited to be partnering with Chicago Pacific Founders on this because they provide a huge input of business expertise and reach into the payers to understand what they need and why and the capital in order to accomplish the project. n Deal to send Canadian spine patients to US hospital finalized By Carly Behm P lans to send Canadian spine patients to Sanford Medical Center in Fargo, N.D., were finalized Feb. 24, the Winnipeg Sun reported. Manitoba Health Minister Audrey Gordon shared the update at a news conference. On Feb. 25, Sanford Health Vice President of Op- erations Brittany Sachdeva said in an emailed statement to Becker's that the hospital is beginning a medical care pilot. "We expect to care for approximately five patients over the next sev- eral weeks," Ms. Sachdeva said. Plans to admit Canadian patients to Sanford were first announced in January. Spine patients who have been waiting a year or more for surgery are eligible. The spine surgery delays are part of a larger backlog of cases in the province amid COVID-19 surges. n Pain physicians charged in illegal opioid scheme, licenses revoked By Alan Condon A n orthopedic surgeon and an internal medicine specialist in Tennessee have been charged in federal court with illegally distributing thousands of opioids across the state line, Clarks- ville Now reported Feb. 22. Five details: 1. John Stanton, MD, an orthopedic surgeon and pain management specialist, and James Maccarone, DO, an internist, allegedly prescribed at least 46,060 opioids illegally from July 2016 to about March 2021. 2. Dr. Maccarone owned and operated Gateway Medical Associates in Clarksville, Tenn., where Dr. Stanton served as medical director from July 2016 to late 2020, according to the report. The clinic is now closed. 3. Prosecutors accused both physicians of disregarding professional standards for the prescription of opioids, prescribing dangerous quantities and combinations, and writing prescriptions for patients exhibiting "obvious signs of drug diversion and abuse," according to court documents. 4. Dr. Maccarone pleaded guilty Jan. 24 to conspiracy to unlawfully distribute controlled substances. He has agreed to forfeit more than $200,000 from three bank accounts and pay an additional $1.3 mil- lion judgment. Dr. Stanton pleaded not guilty. 5. Both physicians' licenses have been revoked. n

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