A new orthopedic supergroup is taking a steady approach toward growth and shared values, John Corsetti, MD, told Becker’s.
Northeast Orthopaedic Alliance launched in January and serves as an aggregation of five New England practices, Dr. Corsetti said.
The groups are Boston Bone & Joint Institute, Concord (N.H.) Orthopaedics, Andover, Mass.-based Mobility Bone & Joint Institute, Nashua-based New Hampshire Orthopaedic Center and Springfield, Mass.-based New England Orthopedic Surgeons, with nearly 110 physicians and almost 1,000 total employees.
As an aggregation, similar to OrthoMidwest, the practices retain their own branding and identity while operating under one tax ID.
5 practices with common values
Northeast Orthopaedic Alliance has been in development for a couple of years, and Dr. Corsetti worked with Brian McKeon, MD, on identifying the founding groups.
“We reached out to groups that were similar in size and had similar revenues and governance structures,” he said. “It really was a directional look at what groups we felt would give us good geographic coverage as well as be similar in terms of our decision making process.”
A unifying thread among the groups is that they all previously rejected private equity opportunities, Dr. Corsetti said.
“We are actively not interested in private equity money,” Dr. Corsetti said. “As private equity becomes more prominent in our area we might in some way partner so they can use our MSO or in order to bolt on for contracting. But in terms of actually doing a private equity deal and letting them buy into the MSO, taking capital for any projects, we are absolutely never going to do that.”
Why Northeast Orthopaedic Alliance won’t grow ‘too aggressively’
Dr. Corsetti said Northeast Orthopaedic Alliance plans to grow steadily in the region with a goal of one or two additions each year. He also plans to establish a maintenance services organization through the aggregation to consolidate back office services.
“We’re going to try to grow very deliberately and not grow too aggressively,” he said. “As the MSO comes together, our ability to aggregate and bring on other groups will get better. But if we grow too quickly we may run into some bumps in the road as we try to aggregate these groups … Right now we want to be working on one group at a time, get them aggregated and folded in, and then move on to the next one.”
New opportunities for payers, bundles
Northeast Orthopaedic Alliance is in its early months and working through new benefits when it comes to payer contracting. Dr. Corsetti said he also plans to use the aggregation to launch value-based care options.
“We’re going to lean into the more common procedures such as total hip replacements, total knee replacements and procedures that we can put a fairly narrow band of cost on for a bundle price that would work for the payers and us,” he said.
Another advantage Northeast Orthopaedic Alliance is homing in on is with its site of service, and most of the practices’ surgeries are done in the ASC, Dr. Corsetti said.
Thinking about the orthopedic landscape, Dr. Corsetti said he hopes Northeast Orthopaedic Alliance’s consistency across practices will make it stand out as a leader in the region.
“I think what differentiates us is uniform quality,” Dr. Corsetti said. “Across 110 surgeons and about 1,000 employees, the quality is really what makes us unique in a private practice setting. This is not an academic setting, and aggregate private groups with uniform quality, I think is unique.”
