The urge to merge among surgeon owned practices continues unabated across the United States.
Three California-based physician owned orthopedic practices have announced that on January 1, 2022, they will become a single practice known as Golden State Orthopedics & Spine.
The three San Francisco Bay Area practices include Muir Orthopaedic Specialists, OrthoNorCal, and Webster Orthopedics. Once consolidated, the practice will service patients from its 18 locations in 11 cities around the Bay Area.
Golden State Orthopedics & Spine will “consist of more than 60 musculoskeletal specialists including primary care physicians, orthopedic surgeons, pain management experts and more.” It will also have more than 550 employees. This will make it the third “largest specialty orthopedic group in the western United States.”
In the press release, OrthoNorCal CEO Andy Miller said, “There are many benefits of being a bigger group. Our geographic footprint now allows us to expand patients’ access to our high-quality care and being larger gives us more leverage of clinical and business synergies that will help us drive value through to our patients.”
The groups decided that the new practice will continue to be a completely physician owned practice. Its board of directors will consist of board-certified orthopedic surgeons.
Muir Orthopedic Specialists CEO KC Campion discussed the merger with OTW, saying, “The three groups have been working on joining together since February 2018 and are now at the point where they will begin electing their new officers and governing board for 2022 and beyond.”
Campion continued, “We have made excellent early progress in uniting our groups and we continue to work on our systems and processes to build a strong foundation for the future.”
“Our goals for 2022 include leveraging technology to improve the patient experience. This includes updating our patient portal, introducing automated online appointment scheduling, and offering more options for patients to choose how we communicate with them.”
I certainly hope that this merger will improve the service I Golden State orthopedics. I’ve been a patient there for over 20 years and all that I’ve experienced is incompetence the staff cannot even complete a simple request in medical records. The only person I have encountered that has a heart that’s willing to help is Joe Torres, the PA in orthopedic express Maybe it’s time for you to review your staff because I am going to transfer to BASS orthopedic. I can no longer deal with these issues.