Becker's Spine Review

31 PRACTICE MANAGEMENT Bundled Payments, Consolidation & More: How OrthoVirginia is Building a Future-Facing Empire By Laura Dyrda A s of Jan. 1, 2016, OrthoVir- ginia and e Orthopaedic Center of Central Virginia merged. OrthoVirginia now includes more than100 physicians and 21 office locations. "We hope that through integration we can provide more efficient, higher quality care," says Anthony Shaia, MD, president of OrthoVirginia's board of directors. "Much of the administrative burden physicians feel from meaningful use, PQRS and other regulations are really quite consuming. But with a large practice we can spread the cost around more effectively. We really think the era of every physician on an island practicing the way he thinks best is behind us and we're heading toward more standardized care." OrthoVirginia has been growing over the past several years and it took a considerable time for all the specialists to decide on standardized care. Each different group comes with their own leadership and management styles as well as ideas about treating patients. But, OrthoVirginia became involved in the BPCI program for bundled pricing with Medicare and the program helped the surgeons develop quality standards that also cut costs. "e sports medicine physicians are now meeting on the statewide level to look at outcomes and putting together the processes to identify procedures or techniques that are most effective," says Dr. Shaia. "We have begun to look at the way we care for patients, what we do for them in postoperative care as well, and develop protocols to spread to other physicians. Sports medicine and total joints are our first areas of focus." Most of the surgeons are enthusiastic about contrib- uting to the efforts, but debating and solidifying care standards takes considerable energy. Surgeons who have practiced one way for decades are slow to change, despite the evidence, and many are nervous about the consequenc- es of change. Dr. Anthony Shaia

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