What Happens When a 500-Joint-Replacement Surgeon Adds an Orthopedic Concierge Program — And Stays In-Network
- May 14
- 6 min read
For most busy orthopedic surgeons, the words “concierge program” conjure images of disruption — new software, staff retraining, insurance headaches, and a pitch they’ll have to make to every patient.
This case study is about a different reality.
One of 365 Surgical’s founding partners — a six-physician private practice orthopedic surgeon performing approximately 500 joint replacements per year — has now been running the program for over three years.
What he’s found isn’t a practice overhaul. It’s a single additional minute at the end of a consultation, and measurably better outcomes for the patients who opt in.
The Practice: High Volume, High Standards, and a Familiar Problem
The surgeon in this case study specializes in adult reconstruction of the hip and knee, including primary and revision hip and knee arthroplasty. His practice operates under a physician services agreement with a major regional health system, with six physician partners in the group.
His clinical approach is at the leading edge of the field — direct anterior hip replacement and patient-specific total knee arthroplasty using kinematic alignment. Patient outcomes, by most measures, are excellent. The practice has built a loyal patient base that returns for subsequent procedures and actively refers friends and family.
But like virtually every high-volume orthopedic practice, the volume itself creates pressure on staff, on communication, and on the patient experience in healthcare settings that, by their nature, move quickly.
“Visits are brief, and patients sometimes feel they are lacking close follow-up and some of the personal touches.”
The areas of greatest strain were predictable:
preoperative education
same-day-before-surgery phone calls to address last-minute concerns
post-operative follow-up calls to assess progress
and helping patients coordinate the practical logistics of their lives around surgery
All of it clinical-adjacent, all of it time-consuming, and none of it work that required a surgeon’s direct involvement — but all of it falling on the clinical team regardless.
Why He Helped Found 365 Surgical
This surgeon wasn’t a late adopter in evaluating a new vendor. He was one of the founding surgeons who helped create 365 Surgical over three years ago, which makes his perspective particularly valuable — it’s grounded in both the problem that needed solving and the design of the solution itself.
The concept was straightforward: concierge primary care had existed for years, offering patients a higher-touch experience in exchange for a membership fee. But no equivalent existed on the surgical side. And critically, no model had been built that kept the surgeon fully in-network with all insurance providers while offering an optional concierge upgrade to patients who wanted it.
“We wanted to have a model that allowed us to stay in-network with all insurances and provide an optional concierge package to all of our joint replacement patients.”
That “in-network” detail is not a footnote. It’s the architecture of the program. The orthopedic concierge program is offered as an optional membership — not a required fee, not a barrier to care, and not a change to the surgeon’s billing or insurance relationships. Patients who enroll access a layer of non-clinical perioperative patient support on top of their existing clinical care. Those who don’t enroll receive exactly the same clinical treatment they always would.
How the Program Integrates Into an Active Orthopedic Practice
The implementation question is often what stops surgeons from exploring options like this. New workflows, new vendor relationships, and new staff responsibilities can feel like more cost than benefit — especially when a practice is already running at capacity.
This surgeon’s experience was different, for a specific reason: the program was designed to require almost nothing of the surgical team beyond a brief introduction.
The Workflow, Step by Step
When scheduling a joint replacement surgery, the surgeon mentions the concierge program as an optional membership. He hands the patient a one-page summary and highlights a few key components. That’s it — approximately one additional minute at the end of the standard consultation.
From there, the 365 Surgical team follows up directly with the patient, explains the program in full, answers questions, and handles enrollment if the patient chooses to proceed. No staff burden. No awkward patient communications handoff. No follow-up work for the clinical team.
Once enrolled, the 365 Surgical concierge manages all non-clinical perioperative support: preoperative education, scheduling coordination, DME logistics, approximately 10 proactive touchpoints through the surgical journey, and post-operative check-ins — all following the surgeon’s protocols. Clinical concerns are always escalated promptly. The program operates as a support layer, never as a barrier to care.
“Relatively seamless. I spend an additional minute at the end of my normal consultation to highlight the advantages of the program and then leave it to the 365 Surgical team to follow up.”
What Changed After Three Years
Three years in, the results this surgeon describes aren’t dramatic in the way a turnaround story might be. His practice was already performing well. What the orthopedic concierge program changed is the margin — the difference between a good experience and an exceptional one, for the patients who chose to enroll.
Enrollment and Offloading
Approximately 20% of his surgical patients enroll in the program. That number is meaningful in two directions: it’s high enough to represent a real reduction in non-clinical call volume for the clinical team, and it’s low enough that the brief introduction doesn’t create friction for the 80% of patients who prefer to proceed without it.
The practical effect on the team: fewer calls routed to medical staff for questions that don’t require clinical judgment. Fewer post-operative check-ins to schedule and manage internally. And a reduction in the kind of coordination tasks — DME delivery, logistics, preparation questions — that fall into a gap between clinical care and patient readiness.
Patient Satisfaction
For patients who enroll, the feedback has been uniformly positive. The surgeon describes enrolled patients as “universally thrilled” with their experience — a characterization that holds up across the full range of orthopedic surgery patient types his practice sees.
The mechanism isn’t complicated. Patients who have a dedicated point of contact, who receive proactive outreach before surgery rather than scrambling for answers at the last minute, and who go through recovery with someone checking in consistently, feel better supported. That sense of support translates directly into patient satisfaction with healthcare scores and into the kind of referrals and repeat patients that sustain a high-quality private practice.
The Surgeon and Staff Experience
His summary of the internal impact is concise and telling: happy patients, happier office staff, and the ability to see a slightly lower volume of patients at a higher level of care.
That last piece matters for orthopedic practice management at the level this group operates. The program doesn’t just improve patient outcomes — it creates space. When non-clinical tasks are handled by the 365 Surgical team, the clinical team has more capacity for the work that actually requires their expertise.
What He Would Tell a Surgeon Who’s on the Fence
The hesitation most surgeons feel about adding anything to their practice workflow is reasonable. They’ve seen programs that promised simplicity and delivered complexity. They’ve evaluated vendor relationships that required more of their team than they saved.
This surgeon’s perspective on that hesitation is direct: the 365 Surgical team comes to you. They educate your office staff. They show your team — from experience, not from a pitch deck — how easy the integration actually is.
“The 365 Surgical concierge team will come out and educate your office staff and show you how easy it is to integrate into your normal workflow.”
The point isn’t that every surgeon will see the same 20% enrollment rate, or that the program is the right fit for every practice type. The point is that the barrier to finding out is genuinely low — and the upside, for the patients who do enroll, is consistently high.
The Differentiator That Matters Most
Surgeons evaluating this program against other patient experience and healthcare concierge service options tend to focus on one thing above all others: the insurance question.
Most concierge models in healthcare require the patient to leave their existing insurance relationship, or the physician to opt out of network coverage. The 365 Surgical model does neither. The surgical concierge program is additive — an optional membership that patients pay for directly, outside of insurance billing, while their clinical care proceeds exactly as it always would, fully in-network.
That structure is what makes it scalable across a diverse patient population. A six-physician private practice group can’t offer a concierge-only model to a general joint replacement population. But they can offer an optional concierge upgrade to all of their patients — and roughly one in five will choose it.
For surgeons evaluating what concierge services are in a surgical context — and how those services differ from primary care concierge medicine — this case study illustrates the answer. The model isn’t about changing who you see or how you bill. It’s about adding a layer of dedicated non-clinical patient support that the clinical environment can’t provide at scale, without asking surgeons or their teams to provide it.
Ready to see if 365 Surgical is a fit for your practice?
The program is designed to be evaluated with minimal time investment on your part. Our team will come to you, walk your staff through how it works, and help you determine whether the fit makes sense for your patient population and practice model.