Chicago Back Pain Center Aims to Avoid Surgery

"If you arrive and are in serious pain, you can be diagnosed and get a plan of care all in the same visit and with an MRI the same day. Care is expedited and patients don't have to be hunting and pecking. The fundamentals are based on a model that allows us to manage that episode of care," Newton said.

One unusual aspect of the center is that the surgeons are on salary, and while they are paid for their operations, they are also paid if they don't operate, Laich said. "We'll know when surgery must be the end result, but we hope to stay far short of that, with mainstays of behavior modification, changes in diet and (getting patients to) take responsibility for their own health."

"We get paid to guide the care that we feel is more medically and fiscally appropriate," Laich said.

Also underway at the center will be a number of clinical trials of devices and surgical strategies that are being used in Europe.

CEO Newton says he decided to go forward with the project when research "told me is that there's a significant, 20% increase expected in the next five to seven years in people with back issues, and not all of them will necessarily require surgical intervention."

He modeled the center after the Texas Back Institute in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix.

His biggest challenge: Finding a group of physicians who share this philosophy: treating the patient with conservative strategies at first, and who wanted to work in a partnership with the hospital as employees.

The center is only two weeks old, but four weeks of surgery are already booked, Newton said.

"And yes," he says without hesitation. "It will definitely be profitable, because profitability comes from having a full program."