In this session, Patrick Zanayad, a partner in McDermott’s Healthcare practice group, moderated a panel of senior healthcare executives that featured a wide-ranging discussion of the current state of orthopedics and physical therapy (PT) and explored what’s coming next in this important specialty.

Session panelists included:

• Charles Davis, Managing Partner, MD Healthcare Partners
• Thomas Dwyer, MD, President, Premier Orthopaedic Associates (part of American Orthopedic Partners)
• Emil Engels, MD, Chief Executive Officer, Aligned Orthopedic Partners
• Keith Lockwood, ManagingDirector, Jefferies & Company

Top takeaways included:

1. Income repair in orthopedic platforms can be achieved through multiple avenues, including, among others, by fostering ancillary growth, introducing surgery-center ownership, negotiating better managed-care contracts, entering unique partnerships with entities and participating in integrated networks.
2. As value-based care (VBC) continues to grow in the healthcare industry, orthopedic platforms with capital support are better positioned than smaller, independent practices to participate in VBC due to the larger entities’ greater access to quality patient data, particularly given the costs associated with gathering such data. Further, orthopedics, unlike other specialties, has an advantage in VBC models since such practices tend to have more control over a patient’s full care journey and costs. For example, certain orthopedic platforms include practices with urgent-care centers that promote the practice’s ability to capture a patient’s entire spectrum of care, including surgical procedures and post-op physical therapy.
3. Orthopedic platforms can promote vertical growth through a number of pathways, including, among others, by adding new physicians and developing ancillary streams of revenue such [...]
   
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