Timothy Corvino, M.D., has taken on the role of CEO at Orthopaedic & Neurosurgery Specialists in Greenwich, Conn.
In his new role, Dr. Corvino will help the 26-physician practice continue expanding. Last year, ONS partnered with private equity firm Kohlberg & Co. to expand its clinical offerings and ancillary services. Now, the group aims to scale its model to other practices nationwide.
Here, Dr. Corvino discusses his new role and how the orthopedics and spine fields are changing.
Note: Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Question: What attracted you to this new role?
Dr. Timothy Corvino: As a physician leader, clinical quality is the most important thing to me, and what the founding physicians and partner physicians built at ONS is truly amazing. They've grown the practice for the past 20 years, and after learning more about that I saw a tremendous opportunity for this company to grow and serve larger populations for the geographic footprint regionally and beyond.
There have been so many advances in orthopedic technology that support patient care and experience. ONS has achieved a net promoter score of more than 90. Because of that, their growth is coming from their patients recommending the practice to other patients. Orthopedic and neurosurgery care is complex, and I think they've created a unique and integrated care model. I'm excited to partner with like-minded orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons and practices across the country that want to build similar models of care and participate in value-based care and bundled payments.
Q: What are you looking forward to in 2020 and beyond?
TC: From a growth perspective, we want to focus No. 1 on clinical quality and finding the right potential partners. We are going to be methodical and make sure when we do grow, we are partnering with physicians and surgeons that are a great fit for what we are trying to build. There is an opportunity for physicians to focus on their clinical practice and spend as much time as possible with patients. We want our physicians to continue doing that and it's my job to support that mission. That's creating the right models of service on the back end to support patient care.
Q: How do you anticipate ONS will grow in the coming years?
TC: In our current three locations and ASC, we've seen unprecedented growth over the past three years. In addition to that, I believe there is a significant opportunity to expand our footprint outside of our current service area in a meaningful way. We're growing through new partnership opportunities and geographies in order to take better care of patients.
The Kohlberg & Co. partnership has gone extremely well. The interaction between Kohlberg and the physicians is great; they are there to support the physicians in whatever way they can. When Kohlberg was looking for partnership opportunities, the most important thing in a prospective partner was alignment in values of providing excellent clinical care and patient experience to create a meaningful footprint in the communities. ONS also had a lot of choices and potential partners, and I think that during the process to find the right partner, they did their due diligence to find the right fit. It’s because these shared values are aligned that the partnership has really played out nicely and met people’s expectations. We have drawn our attention to look at growth and aim to hire additional surgeons in the multiple different specialties. We are lucky to have tremendous interest from the physician community.
Q: What is the biggest challenge facing the patient on the business side?
TC: The practice has done an amazing job of focusing on a patient-first strategy in the past 20 years. I think that by maintaining the absolute focus on patient care and continuing to find ways to improve it, they will continue to serve patients in the way they had. The biggest risk would be changing that model – it has worked, so when the executive leadership team supports the practice and the patient care provided by physicians, we need to remind ourselves why we're doing what we're doing, get better and provide cutting edge care.
Q: How do you see value-based care evolving and affecting the healthcare space?
TC: We have a mandate to provide the best possible care in the lowest cost environment. We will absolutely focus on that over the coming years and finding ways to decrease the total cost of care while maintaining our outcomes. We don't want to change the interactions between patients and physicians, but instead find ways to be more efficient and on a scale that will allow us more opportunities to bundle the services we provide. We were early in the value-based payments and bundled care opportunities, so it's something we are focused on and will continue to innovate in over the coming years.