Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Michael Verdon, DO, FACOS, Neurological Spine Surgeon at Transcendent Care, Inc.

Transcript

Michael Verdon, DO, FACOS, Neurological Spine Surgeon at Transcendent Care, Inc. · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:00
  This is Carly Beam with the Becker Spine
• 0:02
  and Orthopedics podcast. And today, I'm thrilled to
• 0:05
  be joined by doctor Michael Virden, a spine
• 0:07
  surgeon at Transcendent Care.
• 0:10
  Doctor Virden, thank you so much for being
• 0:12
  here today.
• 0:13
  Appreciate it. Thanks for the opportunity to talk.
• 0:16
  Absolutely. Before we dive into our questions, could
• 0:19
  you introduce yourself and tell us more about
• 0:22
  your background?
• 0:24
  Yeah.
• 0:25
  My name is Mike Verdin. I'm a neurosurgeon
• 0:27
  in Dayton, Ohio. I've been in practice for,
• 0:30
  going on sixteen years,
• 0:32
  this year.
• 0:35
  Been in basically,
• 0:37
  spine surgery is is kinda what I do.
• 0:39
  Community community spine surgeon in in Dayton.
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  I've been in a private practice setting essentially
• 0:45
  or community setting my whole career.
• 0:48
  Started a couple of practices.
• 0:50
  I've been involved with startup projects with service
• 0:53
  line development as well as
• 0:56
  hospital service line development as well. So,
• 0:59
  that's about it.
• 1:01
  Great. And it sounds like, you know, so
• 1:03
  you said you've been in community,
• 1:05
  care and private practice for sixteen years. I'd
• 1:09
  love to just kind of hear
• 1:10
  what are some of the biggest changes that
• 1:12
  you've seen in that landscape in your career.
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  I think over time, it's,
• 1:19
  really COVID, in my opinion, gutted the workforce.
• 1:22
  So a lot of people who were
• 1:25
  late career and not real or mid to
• 1:27
  late career not really wanting to to dig
• 1:29
  into what was going on has left. So
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  there's been
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  a huge experience strain out of the entire
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  health care system from nursing to administration
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  to lab, PT,
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  really all across the board. So it's it's
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  now much more do it yourself kind of
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  situation.
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  So we've had to try to use or
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  develop
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  technology technique to make it better for us
• 1:51
  to evaluate patients, be more efficient. So I
• 1:54
  think what's happened post COVID is there's this
• 1:57
  push for efficiency and
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  the there's not a human,
• 2:01
  workflow to help help with that, and you
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  have to
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  provide the same level of care with less
• 2:08
  human resources. So more things need to be
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  processed oriented or,
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  instead of people oriented. And I think that's
• 2:15
  gonna continue to go,
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  moving forward.
• 2:20
  Got it. And can you talk about some
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  of the other
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  biggest health care trends that you're following today?
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  Well, kind of the rise of,
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  Ingenic
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  AI in the clinical space from an office
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  documentation standpoint. So there's quite a few technologies
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  out there that listen to the interaction between
• 2:40
  the patient and physician and generate
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  notes or potentially orders off of that.
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  It's primarily, it seems to me, for the
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  primary care space or that's the ideal location
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  for it.
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  I'm kind of looking to see how that's
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  gonna
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  influence or eventually show up in in specialty
• 2:59
  clinics like spine or orthopedics or cardiac,
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  because I think there's a huge need for
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  that those kind of technologies there.
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  Mhmm.
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  And how are you using AI in your
• 3:09
  practice if at all?
• 3:12
  We are. Actually, we we have been using
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  a tool that we developed,
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  to triage patients based on the referral type
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  so we know how to order or schedule
• 3:23
  their appointments.
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  We've been using that in the clinic for
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  about three years now.
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  You know, patients call, get a referral.
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  My office staff calls a minute. They we
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  have
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  a kind of the software based package that
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  helps question the patients,
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  And then,
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  it's a
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  algorithmic way to triage patients based on,
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  their symptoms severity, and it's a validated tool
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  that we've used for a while, and it's
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  really helped. I mean, my throughput has increased
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  by a factor of two. In other clinics,
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  they're out there in their surgical output, this
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  increased by 10%. So it's really pretty neat.
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  You have a way to and the patients
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  get early treatment, right person, right time kind
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  of thing.
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  And, it's been good for the patients and
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  and of clinical efficiencies.
• 4:07
  Yeah. That sounds especially useful too just in
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  terms
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  of getting patients
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  what they need quicker through the help of
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  AI.
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  And, like, besides,
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  you know, these listening tools and triage,
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  what other applications for AI and SpineCare do
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  you think will really take front and center
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  stage in the coming
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  I think,
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  so decision support tools kind of for people.
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  So the whole concept of,
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  you know, OpenAI,
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  really, as a technology scrapes the Internet for
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  knowledge to give you,
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  suggestions.
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  Well, I think there's gonna be a back
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  end where research tools are gonna feed those
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  kind of machines,
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  and you're gonna have fresh new research type
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  data to,
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  again,
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  fuel those large machines to
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  create outputs that are relevant to a patient
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  or to a patient population.
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  I was talking to a friend of mine
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  yesterday. It's like almost each individual,
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  hospital will be will be its own data
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  hub, which is, if you think about that,
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  pretty fascinating. Right? So you can treat the
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  patients in your community
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  with the disease states that they're presenting with
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  based on your own clinical data,
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  and help evolve care,
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  for your community, which is really what we
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  need. We need, like, the right treatment for
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  the community because,
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  you know, what is
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  a disease process that's very common in Detroit
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  is not the same as it is in
• 5:34
  Dubai. They're just very different
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  based on the way people live and how
• 5:38
  their the diseases are presenting. And we're gonna
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  have tools to be able to
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  help the people at the bedside get the
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  patient what they need as soon as they
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  can.
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  Absolutely. And really just kind of parsing through,
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  like, the nuance you said in, you know,
• 5:52
  between different communities.
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  Correct.
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  And what are some other things that are
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  really exciting you right now in spine and
• 6:00
  in health care?
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  You know, I think it's not exciting, but
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  it's certainly a huge opportunity is this whole
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  care the access,
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  model that they're talking about for for,
• 6:14
  Medicare patient population. So we're gonna be forced.
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  I think
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  organizations are gonna be forced to
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  treat for value. Meaning,
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  not everybody you're not gonna get paid per
• 6:25
  per piece meal. You're gonna get paid per
• 6:27
  patient population or per disease
• 6:29
  state for the patient population.
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  It's kind of an old fashioned version of
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  capitated medicine under a certain disease state. And
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  so whoever owns that whole entire
• 6:40
  system of care
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  is gonna
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  provide the best care usually,
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  have the whole patient population, quote, unquote, captive.
• 6:49
  That would be surgical and nonsurgical, and then,
• 6:51
  again, have the data to prove that their
• 6:53
  model of care is most effective.
• 6:56
  So it's a real opportunity. You know? I
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  I think as a physician, I am
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  I create a lot of data, and I
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  generate a lot of data, and I become
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  I become the tool that,
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  applies the data. I think that's how we're
• 7:08
  gonna change. The medicine's gonna change. It's gonna
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  not you're not in the health care business
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  anymore. You're in the health care data business.
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  And I feel like
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  once people wake up to that, their whole
• 7:19
  I think a lot of the relationships could
• 7:21
  change.
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  Very well said. And can you talk about
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  how you're thinking about growth over the
• 7:27
  next twelve to twenty four months, whether it's,
• 7:29
  you know, expanding practice locations,
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  increasing your volume, or, you know, just kind
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  of expanding on this value based care that
• 7:36
  you're talking about?
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  I think there's gonna be more of a
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  push, not it's gonna be effective
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  quality volume. Right? So we can't just so
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  a lot of times when we hear models
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  about it's gonna be quality based outcomes or
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  no volume is gonna stay the same.
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  There's gonna be a premium for quality volume.
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  And how I think that needs to be
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  built is by having a standard way to
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  just take a patient in,
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  And that's what essentially triage is. Right? A
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  standard way to evaluate a patient, a standard
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  way to work a patient up, a standard.
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  And there's so much variability,
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  across
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  the regions for, say, spine care. Right? What
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  what is the standard treatment in your community
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  for this mixed bundle as these set of
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  five s one on a healthy 45 year
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  old? It is wildly different, the places I've
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  lived.
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  So,
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  I think those nuances are not gonna go
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  away, but you're gonna they're gonna value the
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  outcome.
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  So,
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  you know,
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  I was watching the movie, The Founder. It's
• 8:40
  about Ray Kroc up in your your neck
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  of the woods at the founder of McDonald's,
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  and he had a revelation when he was
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  told that he wasn't in the hamburger business,
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  that he was in the real estate business.
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  And I kinda feel like we're in the
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  data business.
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  So
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  we have to own what we're producing and
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  then look at what we're doing and and
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  and ask ourselves, is this really valuable? And
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  then can you market what you do?
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  Absolutely. And I'm wondering, you know, obviously, a
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  lot of opportunities, a lot of exciting things
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  going on. What are some of the biggest
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  headwinds that you're
• 9:14
  preparing for going into 2026?
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  I think
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  in in my market, consolidation
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  and or
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  integration vertically. So there's not a lot of
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  room for independent practice to function.
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  I think you have we definitely are gonna
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  have to partner with hospital systems no matter
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  where you are from an economies of scale
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  standpoint. You know,
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  I think that there's
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  reimbursements declining to a point where it's punitive
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  to do cases to do clinic.
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  You can't do clinic because you'll lose money
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  in the clinic, which seems crazy, but the
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  reimbursement has gotten so low.
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  The amount of
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  volume you have to take on to make
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  it up or the cost that you have
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  to assume to attain the patient pool is
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  is not is counterproductive.
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  So I don't think that that
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  model is gonna be sustainable. I don't think
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  any of the older model that we're used
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  to fee for service
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  is sustainable in any way, shape, or form.
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  We're in we're definitely in a strange new
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  world where
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  the models are gonna be laid out there,
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  and we have to iterate way through it.
• 10:25
  Got it. And, you know, just my last
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  question for you and might have touched on
• 10:29
  it a bit already, but
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  if you can pinpoint a a single key
• 10:34
  disruptor to spine surgery in the next next
• 10:37
  year, what would it be?
• 10:42
  Migration of of technologies out of the Operating
• 10:45
  Room and into the clinic. I think that's
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  really where we don't we haven't thought about
• 10:50
  it much yet. But how are
• 10:52
  most surgeons that I know are neuro or
• 10:55
  ortho spine are
• 10:57
  not technophobes. We embrace technology development,
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  but that has not shown up in the
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  way
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  of
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  office or operations and or service line development.
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  And that migration now will
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  whoever embraces that and uses that information to
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  grow
• 11:16
  and to handle
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  obstacles to care delivery will likely succeed.
• 11:23
  And I think
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  those who refuse to acknowledge that,
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  will probably not won't be able to scale.
• 11:32
  It's just a matter of the volume coming
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  in cannot be handled by a human anymore.
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  There needs to be some element of machine,
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  learning or
• 11:42
  identification
• 11:44
  to parse through
• 11:47
  the silver tsunami that's coming at all of
• 11:49
  us.
• 11:51
  Got it. Well, thank you so much for
• 11:53
  joining us today, doctor Verdin. It's been a
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  pleasure speaking with you, and I look forward
• 11:57
  to connecting down the line.
• 11:59
  Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity.
• 12:01
  Have a good day. You. Have a good
• 12:03
  day. Bye.