Private equity firm Chicago Pacific Founders and musculoskeletal management company Trias Global have invested in Newport Beach, Calif.-based DISC Sports & Spine Center, which aims to strengthen its brand and expand into new regions.
Eight notes:
1. DISC Sports & Spine Center was founded in 2006 by neurological spine surgeon Robert Bray Jr., MD, who established the Cedars-Sinai Institute for Spinal Disorders — now one of the largest spine programs in the nation — where he decreased the average stay after spine surgery from 5.8 to 1.8 days.
2. Under the January transaction, Trias Global became the parent company of DISC Surgery Center at Newport Beach and will serve as the expansion vehicle for the practice's model for outpatient care. Trias Global aims to work with payers on billing strategies to optimize site-of-care delivery.
3. DISC Sports & Spine Center champions a data- and evidence-driven model to improve quality, outcomes and cost efficiency for outpatient spine care. "We've been building this model for more than 15 years — carefully defining the value of outpatient spine while developing a thorough understanding of what it takes to migrate care into ASCs," Dr. Bray said.
4. As outpatient migration continues, payers will increasingly look to ASC and physician networks to perform quality, cost-effective care and forge Centers of Excellence relationships with fair contracted rates that are a win for patients, providers and payers, according to Dr. Bray.
"As these relationships develop, you will find great satisfaction working as a partner with payers to do what we do best: Deliver well-thought-out, quality care," Dr. Bray told Becker's. "This is work that requires complete commitment to data-driven results and time spent to develop payer relationships."
5. DISC Sports & Spine Center has 13 physicians, including eight spine surgeons.
6. More than 6,000 procedures have been performed at the practice's surgery center, which has a zero percent surgical methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection rate and a 98 percent patient satisfaction rating, according to its website.
7. Dr. Bray, who joined the Super Doctors Hall of Fame in 2021, has performed about 15,000 spine surgeries. Ninety-nine percent of his procedures are done in the outpatient setting.
8. He has patents on several spinal implants and instruments, including the Zeiss microscope, and regularly consults with manufacturers on the development of their products.