Vori Health is at the forefront of transforming musculoskeletal care by reducing unnecessary surgery and medical expenses. Their innovative approach focuses on evidence-based solutions and a patient-first philosophy. This strategy ensures optimal outcomes and cost reductions for both individuals and employers.
Key Takeaways from Vori Health’s Approach
- Reduction of Unnecessary Surgeries: Vori Health prioritizes non-surgical treatments, significantly cutting down on unnecessary surgeries. This not only improves patient safety but also leads to considerable cost savings.
- Patient-First Strategy: Every care plan is uniquely tailored, keeping the patient’s health goals and outcomes at the forefront. This personalized approach ensures higher patient satisfaction and better recovery outcomes.
- Integrated Care Team: By employing a multidisciplinary team including non-operative physicians, physical therapists, and care navigators, Vori Health offers a holistic treatment model. This collaborative approach ensures that all aspects of a patient’s care are addressed, promoting optimal health.
- Commitment to Validation and Transparency: Vori Health’s focus on validation and transparent reporting of outcomes fosters trust and credibility. Their evidence-based methods are a testament to their dedication to quality care and accountability in musculoskeletal health.
Introduction to Musculoskeletal Solutions
Validation Institute:
“Today we are talking about musculoskeletal solutions with Vori Health. We’ll explore how employers can put an end to needless surgical expenses, support their workforce in accessing optimal MSK care through expert medical teams, all the while achieving substantial cost reductions. Let me get started by introducing the CEO and co-founder of Vori Health, Dr. Ryan Grant. Hello, Ryan, and thank you for being here today.”
Dr. Ryan Grant, CEO and Co-founder of Vori Health:
“Thanks for having me.”
Addressing the Overutilization of Surgery
Validation Institute:
“So, I know I kicked off with a fraction of what Vori does, but can you tell me more about the problem you were solving and for whom?”
Dr. Ryan Grant, CEO and Co-founder of Vori Health:
“That’s a great question. My background: neurosurgeon by training, fellowship training in spine surgery, spent some time getting educated at University of Pennsylvania, then was up at Yale University, and more recently at Geisinger Medical Center.
I decided to shut my practice down during the pandemic. To be blunt, we operate way too much as surgeons. Surgery has its place but it’s heavily overutilized.
Depending on who you want to read, including Harvard Business Review, the average health system does over 50 percent unnecessary or inappropriate spine surgery.
They’re not bad people; you could spend a semester on how we got here as a country since World War II. But how systems have built business models around facility fees, which is how they mostly get paid for surgical procedures.
Those are the same institutions that also train the new guard, the new clinicians. And so, really, now we’re at an education crisis where nobody thinks we’re doing anything wrong, but we sort of have lost our way.
Even all of that wanted to start over and build a new care model from scratch that puts patients first, that follows the evidence, that doesn’t do unnecessary surgery or unnecessary imaging or not unnecessary injections.
These are people’s loved ones, and if you’re going to take somebody to the operating room to cut them literally open with a scalpel, it better be for really evidence-based best practice procedures.”
Differentiating Vori Health
Validation Institute:
“Wow. And what sets Vori apart from other MSK solutions?”
Dr. Ryan Grant, CEO and Co-founder of Vori Health:
“That’s a great question. There are several other players in the space, particularly on the virtual side. They tend to be heavily physical therapy only.
I would argue that physical therapy is necessary but insufficient, and so we wanted to tackle this from a medical practice standpoint. What does that mean?
We are doctor-led, physician-led. We employ non-operative physicians trained in either sports medicine or physical medicine rehabilitation, that would be the corollary of what the cardiologist is to the heart surgeon, who actually work together with doctors of physical therapy and health coaches and care navigators to actually have a true integrated care team who then practices evidence-based care with the patient’s goals at mind.
Other thing that we also want to tackle is a lot of musculoskeletal orthopedic surgeries, which includes back, neck, hip, knee, shoulder; many of the procedures are quality of life operations.
So making sure we have conversations with patients: Is surgery a necessity or is it an option? I’ll be the first to admit, I was taught to talk to people in absolutes—surgery, you should have surgery—versus a lot of these surgeries really belong, in my opinion, in the facelift category.
What do I mean by that? Nobody needs a facelift. How bad do your wrinkles bother you as you age is a very personal decision. If they really bother you, you can escalate to injections, and if they still bother you, you can escalate to evidence-based best practice facelift procedures with a plastic surgeon.
Or if they don’t bother you, you can do nothing about it. And so, that’s a very specific. If you only have pain—not to minimize how uncomfortable you might be—first, have you exhausted a non-operative program?
Then, if you do meet criteria for potential surgery, is it a necessity or is it just an option, and if it’s an option, does the patient understand that?
Most people, if you audit them on the surgical arm, they don’t know that surgery was an option. They think they have to have it because they were told to.”
Mrs. Johnson just wants to walk around Target and be able to shop with minimal pain unassisted, like those are all very different goals. The person who wants to run a marathon versus walk around Target, those are very different care plans in terms of how aggressive they are.
